I can attest that it does happen by removing social mods. I inadvertently discovered this when I removed my entire download folder to clear the CC out of a lot that I wanted to upload, and that included removing ACR. The glitch will stay in a lot that I'd upload. And the same thing can happen if you download a lot where the player who created it had a social mod like ACR and you don't. At least this is what I've gathered.

pbanda is right, putting in that hack will fix it. Once you noticed it's gone, you can remove the hack again if you don't want it. Preparing a lot for upload is a different story as you have to be careful to test for it along the way.

I don't believe it explodes your game but it can be really annoying and can tank sims relationships pretty fast. Hope you get rid of it! >_<

Also I love the idea of setting writing goals. I was thinking of that last night actually, except I may instead try my hand at drabbling to get my writing excercises in. Good luck if you decide to do it!