I had a townie move out, gave me no notice, nothing, and she was one of my favorites. A friend of mine had the same townie, but not my original, in his town so when she was boxed up and ready to move I went and talked to her. She just rambled on and on about moving, never giving me the option to have her move to my town.

I read somewhere awhile back that yes, you can get the same townie twice, but only if they happen to camp in your town. I just wanted to be sure that this was the only way because another friend has her and she's getting ready to move. She asked me if I wanted to come and talk to her when she does, but I don't know if I should bother or not.

Most people say you have to move out 16 villagers after that one in order to purge their file from the system, allowing them to return. I tried to get pecan back by asking her to move in from another town, but the option to ask never came up.  What bigs me is she has never appeared once in my market street or any of the shops.

You do have to cycle out 16 villagers first. That is correct. I'm not quite sure how the "asking a friend's villager" will work out, but you do have to have that handful move out. Like darkannie said you have to get rid of their info.

Getting a villager to come back is difficult. I read on here that another person tried to get a villager back from a friend and was running into the same issue of the option to ask never coming up. So, it is worth a shot but I think the whole thing is a little more complicated than some people might think.

You might not be able to get that villager to move in from a friend. In the same sense that say you had Stitches in your town and a friend had Stitches moving out, you can't go to your friend's town and have them try and move into your town. It might have something to do with that where the coding gets in the way. Which might also be where the 16 cycle comes in.

It might be easier just to wait it out and get them from the campsite.