People moved in with parents or took on additional roommates lowering the demand but there were so many empty bank owned units that the supply was also down. 

@David Torres nails it... as soon as somebody walks down the hallway and sees that bathroom, they will (fine.. may*) be instantly turned off, and think in their heads they have to gut the entire thing.

Owners, acting in their own individual capacity, are allowed to clean, given this, how can I add additional owners w limited rights?

No / late rent = an eviction notice and a walk through without exception.

gotcha... although if you just hand in the keys your walking from your downpayment and whatever cash you have in it.your sense are correct all these folks singing on massive debt with 5 year calls are taking a certain amount of risk.. just need to look back to 08 09 when no one could refi and all these properties changed hands.. it was not because of poor operators basically it was frozen credit and banks not relenting or walls st.. hedgefund bought said notes from failed banks and refused to rewrite and took the assets.. since they paid pennies on the dollar for the paper.. foreclosing and reselling was still a better play for them.. 

I spoke to 3 lenders today and all insist on me using my own name and transferring after closing which is yet additional fees.

Which is close to round enough, in turn, that it makes me think the lender just documented $10m/yr and stopped documenting additional income at that point because it would serve no purpose. 

I would also add, it's possible you could end up repainting with Kilz which will "seal in" the cause of the smell functionally eliminating it. 

From middle-class married couples that just want to ensure financial betterment for their family to world-famous billionaires, people from all walks of life participate in the game of profiting in real estate. 

A lot of people give up at that stage but if you track down the owners, you may be the first person to approach them because it takes additional work.