Ways to handle tenant maintenance when self-managing?

[Sandy J.]

What are the best ways to handle tenant maintenance, emergency and non-emergency, without hiring staff, doing repairs yourself, or being on call 24/7/365?

My husband and I have @10 units (single family and duplex) that we are thinking of self-managing. Property management companies in our area will do it all for 10% of rents, but we believe we can handle turnovers by hiring subs, and handle leasing and rental operations ourselves, so we would prefer to find a way to save that 10%. We used to do it all but we had more properties which supported keeping a handyman and property manager on staff.

Wondering how other owner/managers with just a few properties handle this?

Thought about finding one or two handyman services in the area who offer emergency services, but wondered about issues regarding access. I'd love to be able to leave keys in the contractor's possession so that if neither the tenant, my husband, or myself could meet them they could access the property. Is this legal? Advisable? Unwise?

Any other suggestions?