I told tenant to fix this by hiring a gardener to do the work and reminded her of her responsibility, yet nothing was done, so received a 2nd letter from the city. 

Ive created relationship with this couple and i feel like i know exactly what they are looking for over the course of time i visited and talked with them, they reminded me of my parents and wanted to create a Win-Win situation for both parties... where they can enjoy their retirement now and stop fixing up/managing the property. 

I'm sure he's reminded of that every day.  

I remind my Farmers agent of that to keep her honest.

But that reminds me, change those batteries during my 6 month inspections on my units. 

Without doing a deep dive on his reports yet, I put together a rough spreadsheet isolating the performance of our 401k balance over the next 30 years (when I hit 60) vs. an owner occupied 4-plex using a 3.5% down FHA loan.Please feel free to poke holes in my numbers or remind me of something I'm not considering... otherwise the decision seems pretty clear to me that we'd want to withdraw our 401k!

You should probably remind her that every day she occupies the unit (even just her stuff there) is another day that will be pro-rated and deducted from the deposit.

Just a reminder to people responding that it is against the rules to offer lending or promote yourself as a lender in the standard forums.

About a week before first rents were due to me I sent them all a reminder letter of the change in method of payment and who to make the payment out to.Worked great!...

I am thinking of sending her a "friendly reminder" letter just stating that November 1 she will begin paying monthly, yada yada, and reminding her of the late fees and so forth.