Mariesalias thanks for the pets advice. I have many times tried multiple pets and got them playing with each other and as soon as I start doing things with the regular sims the pets get taken away because they are lonely. And then the family are banned from owning pets.
I decided it must be the traits I was choosing for them. This one dag seems to be happy l the time so I made a cat with similar independent traits and added it to the family. Then I stopped playing that family. But the short to me I played with both animals and an animal loving sim all in the one household all seemed to be good.
FishKickingGiraffe. I have had a few ghost gnomes. I think it might help if you do have a tombstone of a sim on the lot. But I've got them out of the wishing well rarely without a tombstone.
I had some interesting activity on one lot. I saw sim ghosts going inside the ghost gnome and then it was jumping around as though it was possessed. Then tge ghost would leave it.
The ghost gnomes do age and I presume they die. I do know they don't stay in the game for ever.