I started building my neighborhood in The Sims and now I feel like a creep 

In the opening scene of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, a panning camera shows the outside of buildings and gives the viewer a glimpse inside the apartments. From the floating vantage point, you can see the ongoings of neighbors as they start their days. The view of the camera helps set the scene for the movie, but its voyeuristic gaze into the lives of its characters is unsettling. I’m worried that playing The Sims 4 warped me into the kind of person who looked at my neighbors like that.

As many twisted endeavors do, this particular one started with earnest intentions. After living in the same city for nine years, I found out I would be moving at the end of the summer. In my home city, I was lucky enough to live in a historic neighborhood with colorful painted houses and gingerbread trim. The street was an absolute dream and almost felt like living in a park. I felt heartbroken leaving, and because of this, my partner and I decided to try to recreate some of the houses on our street in The Sims 4 to memorialize the home we loved.

We started by making the house directly across the street from ours, since we always liked it and could see it easily from our second floor balcony. Before long, we built a basic two-story home with dark wood accents and a red brick exterior — but it wasn’t enough. Wall by wall, window by window, we tried to remake our neighbors’ homes as carefully and accurately as possible. Back and forth, back and forth, we walked between the balcony and the TV to make sure we built each part of the house correctly.

Each day, during our daily “look at the flowers” walk, my partner and I would observe the houses in detail. I would note when one home had a long black runner rug on its outside porch, and then go and add it in the game. The top front windows of a house might have trim, whereas the side ones would not. I might stop our walk just to lean my body to peer around the corner of a building and get a better idea of how far it stretched back, only to discover they had a hidden screened-in porch in the back.

Then, I found myself examining my neighbors themselves. The reclusive couple that lived across the street didn’t talk all that much, but when I saw the wife go out one day I went to our porch just to see what she looked like, so I could make a Sim modeled after her. She was wearing a basic blue athletic T-shirt, khaki shorts, and Teva sandals. She had brown, wavy hair cut just below shoulder length — it took me minutes to make her in The Sims 4.

At this point, I had to stop. Like some sort of mad scientist, the execution of the project had strayed from the intention. I knew once I made her and saw her character walking around, jabbering in Simlish, that I had gone a step too far. It felt creepy. I immediately stopped working on the project.

At one point, I considered if it would be adorable or downright freaky to print the screenshots of the houses and leave them in my neighbors’ mailboxes. I thought it would be funny, and something I would like to receive if my neighbors happened to be the Sim-loving type, but I didn’t do it. I figured my neighbors, the majority of which were over 50, might not understand what The Sims is and could even feel threatened by getting an anonymous paper with an obsessive recreation of their house.

In the end, I’m glad we made the houses in the game, even if I ended up feeling like a creep. I got to closely observe my neighborhood in a way I hadn’t before. I felt like it helped me cultivate a sense of appreciation even for the most minute details of each building on the block. The practice became the perfect send-off before my move, and now I can go visit these homes in The Sims if I feel homesick. So, if you want a fun activity to memorize a special home or place, I’d highly recommend remaking it in The Sims — just maybe stop if you ever feel like you end up creeping a bit too much.