All my tenants are 700 + FICO for a reason, much less headaches. there you go self management in my experience is very easy I have my staff track them and all is good. 

For instance, I did a parcel split recently in Pinellas County that took about one month to get ready submit to the county appraiser's office, one week to get approved (incredibly fast and smooth because all the necessary prep work and staff discussions were done in advance), and then one more month to be fully updated and reflected in county records; the approval noted the parcels resulting from the split met the minimum zoning requirements and could be considered buildable parcels, and imposed a restriction that any subsequent splits would require full subdivision site plan and platting.

Not forcing cleaning staff to do before/after pictures of every move out.   

Make friends with the staff or something, or would that violate ethics guidelines?

Otherwise, we encourage our staff to use whatever amount of salt they think they need to prevent hazards.

However, as Joe mentioned, they do this to ensure the quality of the work and maintain a consistent appearance.You might have better luck with the building super or maintenance staff - they should know if there is really a nominated vendor if building management is just being pushy.

I know the bigger ones likely have quite a few relationships with bigger guys then me they feed deals to first so maybe call the younger guy on staff? 

After tearing out my last hair trying to line up a handyman for a job at one of my properties in Burlington, I've decided to use a management company since presumably they either have repair people on staff or a list of contractors who will respond to their requests.

Lenders typically charge a small fee just to pay their staff but most of the closing costs actually come from the title company and some of the fees are state mandated as well.

That is a full time job itself and most simply don't have the time or funds to staff such positions.