The Sims 4 Discerning Dweller Aspiration
If you want to be a good renter have your sims play through the sims 4 discerning dweller aspiration!
This aspiration comes to you with The Sims 4: For Rent and is all about being a tenant.
Your sim will need to use amenities, take care of emergencies and throw fun parties!
Gregarious Bonus Trait
When a sim starts their life with any of the popularity aspirations they are going to be given the gregarious bonus trait. This trait’s description says “Gregarious sims build friendly relationships faster.”
This can be a helpful bonus trait for your sim because you need to host parties and befriend your property owner in this, so you’ll have a little boost in friendships.
Best Traits for The Sims 4 Discerning Dweller Aspirations
Adding traits is a great way to finish aspirations faster because smart traits can help you do things quicker. However, this aspiration doesn’t have skills associated so traits aren’t as important. But there are two fun ones you can add:
- Outgoing: In this aspiration your sim is going to need to host parties and befriend their landlord, so being outgoing is super helpful.
- Party Animal: This trait comes with The Sims 4: High School Years and makes your sims enjoy parties more than other sims do!
There aren’t many lot traits that are helpful here, but there’s one that can make getting gold in a neighbourhood event easier:
- Party Place: This lot trait comes with The Sims 4: City Living and makes it so party tasks are easier to fulfil so you can get gold faster!
Stages of the Aspiration
There are only three stages of the sims 4 discerning dweller aspiration when most aspirations have four. This is nice because you’ll get to that reward trait faster!
Stage One: First Time Renter
- Live in a Residential Rental
To satisfy this requirement for the aspiration your sim needs to move into any of the residential rental lots in Tomarang. There are a few options for you, but you’ll want to pick one that has at least two rental units on it so you can do the next part!
- Meet a Residential Rental Neighbor
To meet your rental neighbour you’ll want to head to any occupied lot in the same building and click on the door. If the sims are home you’ll see the option to knock on door and you can click that to be let in to meet the family.
You may also satisfy this requirement by meeting sims at your welcome wagon event that happens right after you move in. I’ve always had my rental neighbours appear when I first move in to welcome me!
This part of the aspiration requires your sim to invite over their property owner. Your sim is able to invite them over at any time on their phone under the house icon menu. You’ll see the option to call property owner to visit.
When you click this your sim will call them and you’ll get a notification saying that they’ll be right over, then another notification when they’ve arrived. If you can’t find them you can click on their picture icon on the property owner visit notification and it will focus the camera on that sim.
Stage Two: Seasoned Tenant
- Fix Something During an Emergency or Maintenance Event
The best part about renting is that you never have to fix things, I miss that. Home ownership means everything falls on me. Ew! Anyway, this part of this aspiration makes your sim have to fix something themselves which is not fun or cool!
To satisfy this you’ll need to wait until something bad happens and you get a notification telling you so. For example, you may experience an electrical failure. If this happens you can click on any item that’s broken from your TV to your radio to the actual box and just fix a single item to satisfy this requirement.
After you satisfy this requirement you can either continue to fix things yourself or click on a broken item like the breaker box and choose call property owner to visit. The property owner will come over and deal with the rest!
If you decide to just fix it yourself you’ll get a notification telling you that the problem is sorted and the owner can even send you money to repay you for your efforts!
- Host a Neighborhood Potluck or Pool Party Event
This aspiration is all about being a good tenant and neighbour, so you’ll need to host an event for your neighbours! Since my lot didn’t have a pool, I didn’t want to throw a pool party so I went with the potluck.
To throw this party go onto your sims phone and plan a social event, choose the neighbourhood potluck and then the start an event menu will open. You’ll need to pick your sim as the host and choose some other sims as your guests and potluck contributors. Then choose your own lot as the location!
Since this requirement just has you hosting the party but not needing to medal at the party, you can just vibe or work on getting a gold rating. It’s up to you!
The best part about hosting a potluck is that everyone brought food and your sim can eat off it for days as long as you put it in the fridge before it spoils.
- Use an Amenity in a Shared Space 10 Times
A nice part about residential rentals is that they can have fun amenities for your sim to use without you having to spend money on them. This is nice because you can gain skills and do fun things!
For this your sim just needs to use amenities 10 times, the best amenity to use is a garden planter box because each individual interaction from planting to weeding to watering all count as an interaction with an amenity.
You may find amenities like workout equipment, pools, BBQs and more.
Stage Three: Respected Resident
- Achieve Gold in a Neighborhood Potluck or Pool Party Event
To start the final stage of this aspiration your sim needs to earn gold in the same event you had to host in the last part. You start the event the exact same way!
Once the event starts you’ll see a box open in the top left corner with a bunch of tasks to complete. To get to gold you must do as many tasks as possible in a short period of time.
Some of the tasks you’ll see include things like eating potluck food and calling guests to meal. Click on any of the meals someone brings and choose call to meal and sims will satisfy both of these needs. Then, just do all the social interactions that appear until you get gold!
When you get gold at this event you’ll get a notification telling you so and you’ll even get a reward. The reward for this event is the FireBOSS Grill of Grilliness!
- Become Good Friends with Your Property Owner
For the last part of the sims 4 discerning dweller aspiration you’ll need to be good friends with your property owner.
Becoming good friends with a property owner is easy, especially since you’ve already met them! You can invite them over at any time and do a bunch of friendly interactions with them until you become good friends.
If they can’t come over you can even just call them randomly to chat or send texts to improve your relationship! A sim with a higher level of the charisma skill will make friends faster!
- Successfully Break a Unit Rule
When you rent a unit you’ll notice a section called unit rules. This is where a property owner decides what you aren’t allowed to do, so you’ll need to be in a lot that has rules to satisfy this requirement.
None of the lots that were added to the game had rules when I loaded it up, so I had to edit a lot before moving my sim in and add my own rules. You can see the rules at any time by clicking on your phone and under the home menu you’ll see show tenant agreement.
To break a unit rule you just need to do the opposite of what the rule states! For example:
- No Social Events = Throw a Party
- No Loud Noises = Play Music on a Radio or Play Instruments
- Maximum Occupancy = Add More Sims to your Lot
- No Trash Overload = Be Disgusting and Have Trash Everywhere
- No Ghosts = Turn Your Sim into a Ghost and Live There
Note: As of writing this (June 16, 2025) this was broken. I added every unit rule to a lot, then moved my sim in. I turned her into a ghost, threw a party then played loud music and nothing worked. Unsure if this will be fixed but hopefully soon!
Neighborly Reward Trait
When a sim finishes the sims 4 discerning dweller aspiration they are going to get the neighbourly reward trait. This trait’s description says “Sims with this trait are better at negotiating rent forgiveness, getting along with neighbours, won’t have their belongings repossessed by their property owner and host better events.”
