Q:

Trying to enable .htacccess in apache2 but my default.conf is relatively empty

I've been trying to enable .htaccess for all of my domains in apache2 which is running on ubuntu  14.04, but my default configuration file in /etc/apache2/sites-available appears rather barren in comparison to what guides say it should look like.
This is my 000-default.conf file:
<VirtualHost *:80>
    # The ServerName directive sets the request scheme, hostname and port t$
    # the server uses to identify itself. This is used when creating
    # redirection URLs. In the context of virtual hosts, the ServerName
    # specifies what hostname must appear in the request's Host: header to
    # match this virtual host. For the default virtual host (this file) this
    # value is not decisive as it is used as a last resort host regardless.
    # However, you must set it for any further virtual host explicitly.
    #ServerName www.example.com

    ServerAdmin ethenders@gmail.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/html

    # Available loglevels: trace8, ..., trace1, debug, info, notice, warn,
    # error, crit, alert, emerg.
    # It is also possible to configure the loglevel for particular
    # modules, e.g.
    #LogLevel info ssl:warn

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

    # For most configuration files from conf-available/, which are
    # enabled or disabled at a global level, it is possible to
    # include a line for only one particular virtual host. For example the
    # following line enables the CGI configuration for this host only
    # after it has been globally disabled with "a2disconf".
    #Include conf-available/serve-cgi-bin.conf
</VirtualHost>

# vim: syntax=apache ts=4 sw=4 sts=4 sr noet

But guides suggest it should look like, or have this section: 
<Directory /var/www/>
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    allow from all
    # Uncomment this directive is you want to see apache2's
    # default start page (in /apache2-default) when you go to /
    #RedirectMatch ^/$ /apache2-default/
</Directory>

I've added that suggested code to my 000-default.conf file, and restarted apache2, but nothing happens. There is no error message, it just restarts and reloads normally.
Nothing changes, .htaccess files are still ignored. Any help I could get would be much appreciated.

A:

My problem was that I was trying to use /var/www/ in my 000-default.conf file which actually utilizes /var/www/html, and I essentially replicated that error to each subdomain I tried this on (would just tell it to use /var/www/ not the actual subdomain's folder).

