Your post gave me hope, so I tried moving everything in the room to the decorate tab, but I still couldn't place the new couch where the old one had been. Plus in other games, some of the rooms have a couch in this spot, and that may be part of the problem. I don't know. Anyway, just to get a screen shot of the problem, I moved the couch to the spot I would like for it to be, and you can see what happens. So, thanks to both of the people who responded, but I still can't seem to make it work.

I have the same problem. In one game I'll have a pile of toys, but in another game I'll have a bed. When I try to put someone on the bed, they start playing. There are also "phantom" objects that the people are interacting with; they are from the other families I have going. It's making it very difficult to place things where I want them to go.

Yes, that's exactly it. And sometimes it's no problem or even kind of nice--kids hugging the bear that isn't there saves me coins, after all. But with decorating the rooms, it's a big drag in my opinion. Ah, well. Maybe they'll fix it someday, and until then, I just won't do much decorating.

Just putting in my 2 cents. I have this problem too. I notice it is less of a problem if all families have the same item (maybe in different color) in the same place. But, if you want different homes to have different items in those places it is a huge problem.

One work around that works "sometimes" is to clear all items out of the room, then log off for several minutes. Log back on and you may be able to place the new items even if they are not exactly where you want them to go.

Maybe if in VF3 there were different floor plans for each of the 5 families this would not be an issue. Just thinking.

Warning: Try not to place action items such as the piano or the guitar in different places in the different homes or you will get little peeps playing invisible pianos, hugging invisible bears, and swimming through grass. LOL