Since they typically leave pretty quickly once confronted, I haven't called the police...

When I confronted her she said that he never stays more than 48 hours.

My wife is a feeler, everything is about emotion and people's feelings and avoiding confrontation, etc... she would make a horrible wholesaler.  

Are you indifferent when confronted with so much outrage?

This is why I want to really confront all these gurus who make things a million times easier than it sounds!

Plus I think it would send two signals, the first signal being to potential criminals that they are on watch the second signal to the tenants that this is a safe environment.Reminds me of a new show I watched today, Flip Men, they bough a meth property amd they took steps to clean up the property and the surrounding area by: installing a motion light, upkeeping the back alley, confronting and taking pictures of the drug dealers...sorry off track, wifi...

Threats are actually a relief since 99% of the people who make physical threats are too cowards for any physical confrontation.

serving an eviction notice, or otherwise confronting a tenant?

Get thicker skin - if you can't ignore somebody hiding behind a computer, how will you react when confronted with some of the sorts of tenants that are out there?

(And when there is a nonpayment, don't go confront them in person alone or you can wind up dead in a crawl space.. it really happens!)