Ok off the soap box now.

Soap Box ONOver time, most activities (e.g. businesses, sports, personal relationships, etc.) where judgement is involved, develop 'rules of thumb', 'short cuts', 'approximations', etc. which allow you to make 'quicker' decisions at the expense of less certainty; they will be wrong some of the time.

I am thinking about providing new tenants with a welcome basket of basic cleaning supplies and household items like: paper towels, toilet paper, toilet brush, plunger, dish soap, and all purpose cleaner.    

A good way to check if they are still in the property is by placing small aluminum 8x9 baking pans with water and dish soap on the floor, spread them through out the rooms. 

I cannot tell what size buildings you are evaluating ... there are references to existing duplexes, but nothing else.Secondly CAP is one of the simplest, yet most misused ratios in real estate {I won't get on my soap box this time}.  

There are a lot of little things wrong, like a nonfunctional garbage disposal and the dishwasher's soap dispenser doesn't pop and some other small items that will be fixed, but are so inexpensive it really isn't worth going into.  

I was thinking of making rent all inclusive with rent, utilities, cable, internet, cleaning services and household common area shopping( toilet paper, soap etc).

I think their contractors are still subs, but the rest of their business is soap-to-nuts integration of real estate operations and it works.  

Also I think it's a great idea you wrote him a letter sometimes its just that easy and what do you have to lose, I think if more people would get out there and take action like you they could make things happen, ok ill get off my soap box now.

Plus probably have to move, which emotionally sucks, but in reality would not be completely horrible.If you made it this far into my mini soap opera novel.