The Sims (console)/Reality Bites

In this house, you are living by yourself. Enjoy it; you will most likely end up missing it later in the game. Your character will be greeted at their new rental by either Mimi or Dudley Landgraab, depending on your character's gender. The goals of this house are fairly straightforward.

Goals

 * 1) Clean everything up: This is time-consuming but will end up to be greatly rewarding. To complete this, you must mop up all the water in the bathroom, pick up all the trash around the house, and sweep all the ash from the kitchen fire. Once you have completed this step, the maid will be unlocked. The maid is extremely helpful, especially when you move in with Mimi/Dudley or if you have a low "Neat" stat. You can hire a maid by going to the phone and selecting Services. She charges a fee of $10 per hour and it is very important that you are able to pay her. Otherwise, she'll steal something from the house and you won't be able to re-hire her for a few days.
 * 2) Fix all the broken items: This is also time-consuming, but similarly rewarding. You have to fix the broken espresso machine, TV, and computer, as well as unclog the toilet. Once you complete this, you will unlock the repairman. The repairman is not as helpful as the maid, but can come in handy if you don't have time to fix something that's broken. He charges $50 an hour.
 * 3) Upgrade your house: I don't know the specific value that you have to get the house to, but the fastest way to do this is to fill in all the missing walls. The kitchen walls are partially missing from the fire and there is one random wall gap between the main room and the reading room. If this doesn't raise the value, try buying a few lamps as they will also increase the room's atmosphere (Room bar). A final step is to upgrade the wallpaper and flooring. Don't sell anything. It's not worth it and you'll just have to pay the money back later. If you significantly improve the house, you will get the money you spent back when you complete the level.
 * 4) Get promoted to career level two: This is fairly simple since you don't need any skills to be promoted. Just go to work in a good mood. An easy way to do this is to move the Aromaster Whifferpuff Gold into the bedroom and turn it to Lavender and Marjoram right before you go to bed. You will wake up with a fully replenished Fun bar as well as Energy and Comfort. You'll unlock the cooler once you finish this.
 * 5) Get promoted to career level three: This is a little harder because it requires skill building, but it won't take that long because it doesn't require a lot of skill building and you don't need family friends to get to level three.

Other things about this house

 * There are two neighbors named Pauline and Pierre who will regularly walk by and ring the doorbell. While you can befriend them if they stop by when you're home, don't try to flirt with them, because they will decline your advances.
 * I completed this walkthrough using the GameCube version. It might be different from the version for other consoles.