The culprit was a leak coming from a pipe in the crawl space below that other owners unit.  

I know it sounds counter intuitive, but you can increase your passive income by claiming everything legally possible as capital expenses. 

The owner may have trashed it on their way out to "get back at the man" or maybe they stole all the cabinets, doors, copper pipe and fixtures to fund their meth addiction.

The work essentially needed is:1. cut a non load bearing wall2. take out all cabinetry and old wood counter top3.

Similar units in the area typically pull in $500 more per month on a short term basis vs. long termThe seller purchased the house 1 year ago for $210kI’m inclined to offer $265k and see if the owner counters.

We politely decline the offer without any counter offer.

I have learned that contractors will piss in sinks and even open pipes if there's no toilet. 

The last expensive turn I had (tenant left it a huge mess and smoked inside etc), I used a painter, a landscaper, a plumber, a cabinet counter refinisher, cleaners. 

The bank's first counter offer was terrible!

And more recently we boarded the window to keep the pipes from freezing and added a vent to the outside (so it was up to code).