The way puddles and their options behave have changed for me since installing the 2/4/16 patch and/or Romantic Garden, or, possibly even the introduction of hiring a gardener. I just noticed yesterday and can't pinpoint with 100% certainty.
The issue is that sometimes the puddles have options and sometimes they don't. The options literally come and go. What wording appears one minute is gone the next. For example, my neat sim goes out and waters his planter boxes in the very small backyard of a Maxis starter home in Oasis Springs. The uncomfortable moodlet rapidly appears after he is done, as shown in the attached pic.. For an instant, after watering the option for him to mop appears but if I direct him to do so he takes a step or two then a bubble appears over his head with a big question mark in it. After that, no options when I try to click on the puddles, they've simply disappeared. There isn't even an option to stomp the puddle any longer, which is how I used to get rid of them outdoors if they were bothering me after being there for days on end.
His wife doesn't have the neat trait but she, too, gets the uncomfortable moodlet in the very small backyard. If the option right after watering appears for her, she gets the humorous tool tip for mop of "only a neat sim would try to do this" with the option greyed out. Again, though, no option occurs when clicking the puddle again a moment later. I've actually had her then practice mixology on a portable bar on the other side of the yard afterwards. Inevitably, the uncomfortable buff shows up and the greyed out mop option may, or may not return, if I click on the puddles again.
Ordinarily, this is something I wouldn't be overly concerned with, if it wasn't for the fact that sims are responding negatively to the puddles which remain visible for days on end since a sim waters every day. There isn't anything I can do about it, since I can't get an option to stomp the puddles anymore. Well, I guess I could use the cheat to remove the buff but it would simply return the next time the sims go out into the yard. I also haven't put flooring underneath the planter boxes yet as a workaround. I would like to see the return of the ability to stomp.
Since I have a vanilla game, there isn't anything in the empty mods/cc folder that could have caused this change. Perhaps EA has changed something due to either the introduction of a gardening service, or perhaps the introduction of the fountain in Romantic Garden that the sims can play in and/or splash each other while sitting on its side. I haven't checked whether or not the splashing causes puddles to occur around the fountain. I don't recall seeing a negative response from a sim after playing or splashing but I'll look more closely next time.
