Thank you to all of you who responded. I don't think I want to sell as its so hard to get into the market in Ca, (and I have worked hard to do so) although I will certainly think about it. I definitely have had a buy and hold strategy so far.
@Kyle J. Thanks so much for your empathy! AND good ideas.
@Percy Matsunaga Thank you I will look farther into this.
@Albert Ng Property manager was happy to place her with no co-signer but I wasn't because although her income (self employed) was high her business expenses were high too. She does has a landscape design business and so I think income must have been heavily affected. But related to initial screening in January I asked for a co-signer. Said co-signer didn't feel comfortable with the application (ss # etc) and tenant called and asked if she could give double deposit and checks for a year in advance. I thought this was reasonable at the time. When her business checks started bouncing before Covid she paid each time through online deposit a few weeks later, then gave me a new set of checks from different account. I think she made a new account just for those checks and there is no $ in it at all. I know that bouncing checks is illegal so not sure what that means in terms of leverage for me to get paid.
Ive thankfully never had to go through an eviction. I think this person is smart enough and resourced enough to not want an eviction on their record, but she is also probably smart enough to rip me off pretty good in the mean time. So I just need to use this time where I can't do much to get smarter.
