So, to recap, it's FEBRUARY 2019 and this issue has still not been fixed. I am on an XBONE, have gone through at least half a dozen characters, none of whom open the damn door and it has never happened before. I see no way to fix this, I have cleared the persistent storage, I have restarted the game fresh, I have deleted all the relevant autosaves and loaded from an earlier save, nothing works.
I am more than aware that EA is * poor with answers and they basically leave us to sort things out ourselves and then give us a pat on the back when we accidentally find a solution that works, so I'm not keeping my hopes up. Suffice it to say that, after more than a decade of fandom, EA and BIOWARE consequently will not be getting any more of my money, I've already got SIMS 4 without paying for it, and I can keep going, if need be. Bad service and support will get you people wanting their money back, and since that's not an option, we'll find other ways.
Someone please post the fix for this if anyone finds it.