When repairing an existing home, there always seems to be some sort of a surprise... termites, underground plumbing, lots of wood-rot under the shingles, you name it... 

I don't want to fork over 50 K into a tree that will rot in a relatively short period of time.  

When you do ceilings you only have to paper/ plastic the light fixtures and maybe some smoke alarms, you can hang plastic over windows, but the paint is usually dry before it hits them and wipes off easily.

This can happen due to moisture damage or improper installation techniques such as using too much adhesive or not allowing ample time for drying before walking on them.

I simply thought putting it out there in the Forum might keep someone from unknowingly buying something that might leave you out to dry.

You are a local investor with a couple properties, not a conglomerate, and you are looking to get one more and the open market is dry.

How do folks make the ceiling dry and fix it?

Anything state touches rots. 

They rolled over on a deal that was pretty cut and dry in my opinion, and really let me and my client down after months of dredging through paperwork and underwriting. 

Rents will go up and your biggest mistake was to buy a nice house in a desirable neighborhood.The real threat is buying in the hood, leveraged up to the gills, maybe even with hard money, tenants are bleeding you dry, while you are writing checks to attorneys and contractors.Milwaukee is getting a lot of attention lately: cash flow is still better than most places and appreciation is stable at 5-8%.