@A937113 I think it's normal for the trash cans in San Myshuno to be empty like that. Sometimes you can find cupcakes, cups of coffee, or plates of food that other Sims will drop on the ground and you can have your Sim pick them up and put them in the trash (or you can drag it to a trashcan with your cursor) and then the game should let you sort through the garbage. If you go into the plaza areas late in the evenings you will usually see a couple of weirdos dressed up in raccoon costumes and they will dig through trash cans and make piles of garbage that you can sort through.
Btw- there are a few different options for larger households to live in San Myshuno. There is a 5-bedroom apartment in the Uptown District and there is The Old Salt House in the Spice Market that is a regular residential lot that you can edit to create more bedrooms. For the penthouse lots you can add more rooms by creating more floors on top of the existing level. The poster and snow globe collections are two of the easiest to complete in the whole game if you have a household living in San Myshuno. I usually play households living in the Spice Market and I rarely have to rely on finding snow globes on sale in the flea market to complete that collection.
