One thing that is fairly clear is that if you are the settlor of the trust and its trustee and its beneficiary, then you do not get any asset protection benefit because courts will treat trust assets as your own.On the other end, if you are the settlor but neither the trustee nor the beneficiary, then you have a good asset protection trust because you have, in effect, gifted the assets away and have no interest in it whatsoever.

Had one tenant that had a senior wiener pooch, hardly had teeth weighted 25+ pounds, less than a 1' tall at the back and about 2' long body, pretty harmless old dog.

I want you to pay me to build your house, but I must admit that will be my very first house that I will build and I have no experience whatsoever build-ing a house or have any construction experience.  

I use eRentPayment on one of our homes and have had no issues with it whatsoever.

If she doesn't pay, you'll have to send her a predicate notice (typically rent demand but this is jurisdiction specific) and commence a proceeding in housing court thereafter.Just note, any sort of payment plan you come up with out of court, while indicative of certain things does not give this agreement "teeth," and almost certainly will not allow you to speed up the eviction process. 

Worse yet, the tenants get their lawyers for free and with so many law schools in MA many recent grads cut their teeth in the legal system by handling landlord cases.  

But with no penalties whatsoever, there is really no reason for these types of tenants not to milk your property for all their worth.  

My cousins cut their teeth on and (until recently) specialized in D-class (ghetto) properties.

I could write a book on my thoughts here, but given that I have absolutely no expertise on the topic whatsoever, it would probably be a waste of a book.

I have no trouble whatsoever allowing them because my properties are in an excellent area, just outside of DC, where there is no lack of high quality, well qualified tenants. good tenants + a high demand/expensive area = no problems with pets in my experience.I think if I was in a different location with a different type of property, however, I might think twice.