Quick answer
One household = Paras + home lot + shared Paradimes
A household is a group of Paras living on one home lot with a shared Paradimes balance. You manage them from the town map: zoom out and click any moved-in household to switch to it, or click your own home lot for the management menu — split, sell, library. A household holds up to 8 Paras by default — a number the studio has never officially stated, but every larger-household mod describes itself as raising it from 8.
Switch
Switching the active household
Zoom out to the town map — the hazy-filter overview — and click any household that has moved in. Confirm the swap, sit through a short loading screen, and you're playing them. Clicking your own home lot opens its lot menu instead of switching.
Home-lot menu
What the home-lot menu can do
Click your own home lot from the town map and you get the management hub. It shows household members, square footage and beds/baths, plus these options:
Split Household
Move members out onto a second lot you own — the core of household management, walked through below.
Sell all walls and items on lot
Liquidate the lot's contents back into Paradimes. You can sell a lot without having bought a new one first.
Move lot
Listed alongside split and sell in the menu — the community guides don't detail it further, and we won't guess.
Save / place from the library
Save the lot to the library or place one from it. Library lots and households persist across save files — the official content-level backup.
Split
How to split a household (move Paras out)
There is no 'move out' button — splitting is how Paras leave. The full sequence:
- 1
Buy a second lot first: in town view, click an available home and choose 'Purchase Lot' — the confirmation shows your remaining Paradimes.
- 2
Go back to your original home lot on the town map and open its menu.
- 3
Choose 'Split Household'. A menu lists every household member with their Paradimes.
- 4
Move the departing members to the right side and optionally send money with them — the transfer can be zero.
- 5
Confirm. They move into the second lot as a separate, fully playable household.
This doubles as the only no-cheat way to evict a Para: split them out and simply never play that household. There is no delete-Para option without cheats — the community's alternatives (needs deprivation, a fire trap, kill cheats) are exactly as grim as they sound.
Merge & move in
Moving a Para into a household — read this first
There is no general 'transfer Para between households' menu in Early Access. These are the routes that actually exist today:
Romantic 'ask to move in' — and the children catch
A Para can ask a romantic partner to move in. Here's the catch that tops the Steam discussions: the partner's children do not follow automatically — Sarah moves in without Orion, Sebastian without Eli. Player workarounds: switch to the other household and send the invitation from that side so the child is included, or add the child afterwards with the cheat on the right. Whether children ever follow in any context is unconfirmed — there is no official statement.
The merge cheat
Box-select (or shift-click) the outside Para together with one of yours, open the console and run the command below. Players report an added child can still 'think' they live at the old house, so re-check their home lot afterwards. Console shortcuts per platform:
addselectedcharacterstohouseholdCtrl + F1 / Cmd + F1Ctrl + Shift + C / Cmd + Shift + CNew-household merge / replace
Creating a new household from the Paramaker / new-family flow (no new save needed) offers to merge the new Paras into the current household or replace it. Only community snippets describe this dialog — the exact wording isn't officially documented, so read the buttons carefully before confirming.
Money when households combine
Funds handling on merge is murky enough to have its own open bug-report thread ('Merging households/funds'). No official resolution is documented — check both balances after any merge, and screenshot first if it matters.
Getting rid of a Para entirely
There is no delete button without cheats. The clean route is the split-out above — the Para keeps existing, just not in your house. Beyond that, the community's options are killing them: needs deprivation, a fire trap, or the kill / set-on-fire cheat commands. Dark, but that's Early Access.
Multiple households
Playing more than one household
Households you're not playing keep living in town while you're elsewhere — and here's the part that matters: Paras outside your active household don't age by default, so your other families won't grow old while you're away unless you flip the aging toggle. Switching households is also one of the official fixes for the 'everything is floating' glitch (the other is quitting without saving and reloading).
AgingAcross saves
Households beyond one save file
Save a household to the library and it persists across save files — the studio's official content-level backup since 0.1.3. Patch 0.1.5 fixed Para nicknames not saving with library households, and since 0.1.4 creators can tag household and lot uploads on the Workshop (editing an existing upload in-game is how tags get added).
Unverified
What nobody has documented yet
Open questions we won't guess at:
- The 8-Para default limit is corroborated by mod descriptions ('increases from 8 to 20') but has never appeared in patch notes or on the wiki.
- The exact wording and placement of the new-household merge/replace dialog.
- Whether a child ever follows automatically when a parent moves in — player reports say no, but there is no official statement.
- Whether funds merge correctly when households combine — the bug thread is still open.
Household FAQ
- How do I merge two households in Paralives?
- There is no merge menu in Early Access. The working routes: a romantic 'ask to move in' (children don't follow), the addselectedcharacterstohousehold cheat after box-selecting both Paras, or creating a new household and choosing merge. Watch the funds afterwards — money handling on merge has an open bug report.
- How do I move a Para into another household?
- Same answer, one Para: romance them and ask them to move in, or box-select them with one of yours and run addselectedcharacterstohousehold in the console. If they have children, invite from the other household's side or add the kids by cheat — they don't follow on their own.
- How do I split a household?
- Buy a new lot, open the original home lot's menu from the town map, choose 'Split Household', pick the departing members and optionally send money (it can be zero). They become a separate playable household on the new lot.
- How do I switch which household I play?
- Zoom out to the town map and click any moved-in household, then confirm the swap. A short loading screen later you're playing them. Clicking your own home lot opens its menu instead.
- Is there a household size limit?
- 8 Paras by default — never officially stated, but every larger-household mod on the Workshop describes itself as raising it from 8 (to 12, 20 or even 99). If you need more, that's the route.
- How do I delete or evict a Para?
- Without cheats you can't delete a Para. The clean method: split them onto their own lot and never play that household. The alternative is killing them — deprivation, fire, or kill cheats.
- Do children move in with their parent?
- No — this is the most-reported household problem in the Steam discussions. When a romantic partner moves in, their children stay behind. Invite from the other household's side, or add the child with the merge cheat afterwards.
- Can I share my household on the Steam Workshop?
- Yes — save the household to the library and upload it; since 0.1.4 you can tag uploads, and 0.1.5 fixed Para nicknames not being saved with library households. Our Workshop page covers sharing in detail.
Keep reading
Related guides
Backup & repair saves
The library is the official household backup — here is every way to protect a save.
Paras & Families
Lifestages, pregnancy, school and everything else about the people in your households.
Aging
Paras outside your active household don't age by default — the toggle and what it changes.
Cheats & console
How to open the console and every command, including the household-merge cheat.
Workshop
Larger-household mods (12, 20 or 99 Paras) and sharing your own households.
Melino
The town your households live in — including the premade families from the merge questions.
Last checked against Early Access 0.1.6b on July 31, 2026.