Paula: The Passive Aggressive Villager That Just Won't Leave

[Belle T]

This isn't a thread asking for advice on how to get villagers to leave, since I'm sure there are many threads of that nature already, so much as just a funny store and discussion. Though I guess I won't turn away any advice, lol.

So I still have all my starter villagers from New Leaf. I tend to get kind of paranoid about letting them leave, because I quite like a lot of them and think things like "What if I don't like whoever moves in next?" One of them is Paula, who has talked about leaving multiple times. But now that my town is kind of in a state of stagnation with not much new happening, she broached it to me again, and basically said I was fine with her leaving, because I wanted to see who would move in after she leaves. (The whole "villagers need your permission to leave" thing is a bit silly, but whatever!) She tells me that she'll be leaving on the 29th of this month. Then she gets mad at me during the Bug Off, and I decide, you know I'm not so attached to her.

On a secondary player character, I'm catching bugs when Paula greets me and says again that she's going to be leaving soon. So, hoping that it will push her to leave, I say "Well, see ya" or something like that. She does the heartbroken wind blowing animation, and then tells me that actually she's suddenly decided that she's not going to leave just to spite me. So the next morning I wake up, start on my mayor character, and the first thing I see is Paula come up to me and say she's changed her mind about moving because the other character "begged" her to stay.

I'm just flabbergasted. So I've decided to take to hitting her with my net, pushing her around, getting her requests wrong, failing to fulfill them, everything I can, but she unwaveringly refuses to leave. Meanwhile, all the villagers that I've been doing as much as I can to make happy by comparison have been telling me that they've been considering leaving. I... I just can't even!!!

So have you ever had any villagers that you wanted to leave that just... wouldn't? Because I imagine this situation is probably funny to an outsider.

 

[Xara]

oof i feel your pain. this reminds me of when al moved into my town, squashed a bunch of my hybrids and then refused to move for months - i was so excited when i finally managed to kick him out lmaoo

 

[silk.feather]

I really want Boone to move coz he’s creepy and taller than me in animal crossing. Since I also have poppy in my town, once I saw them talking, and poppy gave Boone the same shirt that she wears. Now it looks like they are a couple. I hate Boone. I keep hitting him with a net and pushing him into pitfalls. Even though that doesn’t make him move out its funny seeing him fall in pitfalls.

 

[Dunquixote]

I don’t remember much from NL but I do remember I had issues with Paula (and getting her to move), Baabara, Blanche, Hamlet, Keaton. Paula always rubbed me the wrong way and I didn’t like her design either :/.

 

[Belle T]

-bump-
Oh my lord. Is there absolutely no way to get this villager to move?

She finally approached me again today, telling me about her plans to move, so I tell her "Okay, fine" or something like that. And again, she decides against moving after all. I don't understand why this specific villager is such a pain. All the other villagers--villagers that I actually like and want to keep around--continuously talk to me about moving out, but Paula absolutely refuses to go. WHY!?

 

[LadyDestani]

I'm sorry you're having so much difficulty moving her out. One suggestion is to close your game without saving if she says she's moving and then changes her mind. That way she'll still be planning to move when you log back in and you can either keep trying until she agrees or just ignore her and she should go ahead and move out on her own.

If you haven't saved recently, you will lose your progress, but it might be worth it if you really are desperate to get her out. Good luck!

 

[Seastar]

Just so you know, the villagers actually don't need your permission in New Leaf. So if you don't pay attention to them at all, someone might move away without ever telling you first.
And yeah, if Palua says she'll stay, just turn off the game without saving. At that point, the game has already decided she's going to move. Ignoring her after that will make her move away.

 

[Belle T]

I'm sorry you're having so much difficulty moving her out. One suggestion is to close your game without saving if she says she's moving and then changes her mind. That way she'll still be planning to move when you log back in and you can either keep trying until she agrees or just ignore her and she should go ahead and move out on her own.

If you haven't saved recently, you will lose your progress, but it might be worth it if you really are desperate to get her out. Good luck!

Just so you know, the villagers actually don't need your permission in New Leaf. So if you don't pay attention to them at all, someone might move away without ever telling you first.
And yeah, if Palua says she'll stay, just turn off the game without saving. At that point, the game has already decided she's going to move. Ignoring her after that will make her move away.

I wish I had thought to do that before. I'm a fool.

 

[missy.]

-bump-
Oh my lord. Is there absolutely no way to get this villager to move?

She finally approached me again today, telling me about her plans to move, so I tell her "Okay, fine" or something like that. And again, she decides against moving after all. I don't understand why this specific villager is such a pain. All the other villagers--villagers that I actually like and want to keep around--continuously talk to me about moving out, but Paula absolutely refuses to go. WHY!?

What I do is follow the guide—it is somewhere here on the forum—where the first time they ask you, you immediately agree to their request. “See ya!“ etc. They should at that point say something like great, I’m looking forward to moving or whatever they their default language is. After that, immediately save and close your game. Time travel forward 30 days. Immediately save and close your game. (Don’t interact with any of your villagers. At that point, the unwanted villager’s house will be gone. You don’t even have to check this; it will be gone. Just time travel forward 30 days and immediately save and close your game.) Then time travel back to the day your villager requested to move out. They will be gone. Technically, it will now be one day later. So you will need to once again hunt through your village and see if anyone wants to move out. Hopefully no one will. But if they do, just tell them no. Save and quit. I found this on this forum, but I don’t have a link handy to that thread.

Hitting your unwanted villager with a net will actually cause them to stay longer and it will be a giant pain getting them to move out. I tried this with Twiggy. I was really sick of Twiggy. LOL then, because I couldn’t wait to get her out, I time traveled forward every day, finding the villager that wanted to move, until I finally got to the day Twiggy asked me to move. It was literally two months ahead that I had to travel to get Twiggy to ask me to move. So I do not advise hitting them with the net.

One trick I have learned to get villagers to ask to move more often is to make your town messy. Sprinkle junk next to the railroad station or in the upper part of the Plaza (I think that part of the plaza is safe?) or on the bridges. When the town is messy, they seem to ask to move more frequently.

Good luck getting her to move out!

ETA: If you do not want to time travel, my best advice is don’t interact with that villager at all after they ask you to move and you have told them go ahead and move. Someone else may be able to chime in here. I use the time travel method myself. And yes, absolutely force quit your game if they ever run up to you and say they have changed their minds if you are not time traveling. Thank goodness for force quit. It has saved me so many times, such as when I hit the money rock and I only hit it seven times. Instant force quit!

Post automatically merged: Nov 4, 2020

Just so you know, the villagers actually don't need your permission in New Leaf. So if you don't pay attention to them at all, someone might move away without ever telling you first.

Just a footnote to this for the OP: you still have to talk to a villager once when they first move in and welcome them, on the day when they are in boxes and they have just moved into your town. After that, you can ignore them. But if you don’t talk to them that first time after they have moved in, I have heard it is just about impossible to get them to leave.

Also, if you want to find out if your villager is moving, you can talk to all your other villagers for rumors. There is a great thread here on rumors about moving which was super helpful to me.

 

[Tempest]

Moose wanted to leave today but then decided against it because he thought I would 'stop training' after he left. I don't know how much training I was doing in the first place, but ok moose, if it makes you happy.


Also Boone who I hate with a burning passion, (I don't like the gorilla villagers) hasn't asked once when Drago who will never leave if I have anything to do with it, as asked twice. Maybe I should start talking to Boone more..

 

[Belle T]

What I do is follow the guide—it is somewhere here on the forum—where the first time they ask you, you immediately agree to their request. “See ya!“ etc. They should at that point say something like great, I’m looking forward to moving or whatever they their default language is. After that, immediately save and close your game. Time travel forward 30 days. Immediately save and close your game. (Don’t interact with any of your villagers. At that point, the unwanted villager’s house will be gone. You don’t even have to check this; it will be gone. Just time travel forward 30 days and immediately save and close your game.) Then time travel back to the day your villager requested to move out. They will be gone. Technically, it will now be one day later. So you will need to once again hunt through your village and see if anyone wants to move out. Hopefully no one will. But if they do, just tell them no. Save and quit. I found this on this forum, but I don’t have a link handy to that thread.

Well, that doesn't really work when saying "See ya!" actually prompts them to reconsider. Like, whenever a villager I want to leave finally decides to move out, I usually tell them they can leave, and then never interact with them again. But Paula's been particularly insistent that her leaving would cause me less suffering, and promptly opts to stay instead.

 

[maddycha]

OH MY GOD I ALSO TRIED SO DESPERATELY TO GET PAULA OUT OF MY NEW LEAF TOWN...
god this is bringing me flashbacks she plopped her house in my rose garder and irked me ever since...

 

[Coach]

Funnily enough I have experienced this same NL Paula problem! My friend had her first, then she decided to move out from their town and 'bless me' with her presence. Took so long for her to finally decide to move out... I hope your struggle ends soon!

 

[missy.]

Well, that doesn't really work when saying "See ya!" actually prompts them to reconsider. Like, whenever a villager I want to leave finally decides to move out, I usually tell them they can leave, and then never interact with them again. But Paula's been particularly insistent that her leaving would cause me less suffering, and promptly opts to stay instead.

It should work if you do it the first time a villager requests to move. If for some reason it doesn’t, as someone else said, force quit your game by hitting the home button. then don’t talk to them again. Also, don’t talk to them with any of your alternate players. To make very sure you get them out, time travel immediately 30 days forward using the method previously mentioned.

 

[letisbloom]

She is in my town right now, move randomly, I'm desperate trying her out, but she never leaves, I alrealdy hit her with toy hammer, lush her around into pitfalls and nothing =(((