and second, I wanted a positive experience to give me that mental motivation I need to push me to do something that is normally outside of my comfort zone.

Every day your knowledge will increase and by the time you are financially ready you will be mentally ready as well.Step 3:  Get your kids involved early and teach them what you are learning.  

I need to see an end to the "Wild West" mentality before I can feel confident in Detroit again.

As a recent landlord, I am interested to see some(not all) tenants entitled mentality?

This is the mentality that creates long term renters. 

A common newbie mistakes is to allocate way too much time & mental energy on entities & other distractions.

You will never force these people to be civil so unless you want the next 10.5 months to be miserable for you and the upstairs tenant get them to move on, now.If it continues, your upstairs tenant may have a case to break her lease and possibly even sue you for mental anguish.Again, these people will not change so you need to extract yourself from their lives.

It's a herd mentality, I guess.

(look at factories in Asia and other foreign countries that abuse kids, woman and mentally ill through their working conditions and education opportunities based solely on family social status).

What if one tenant or the other is not physically or mentally capable to do the task?