If this tenant can't afford the $100 increase, I will have to travel back and spend the time and money getting the house ready for a new tenant (paint, carpets, etc) , not to mention decide whether I will hire a company to deal with the rental and the new tenant, which could mean 10% of monthly rent or I will have to deal with it long distance myself and hope for the best. 

We had to replace all of the carpets with wood, costing us over $5K.

I have a clean criminal background, and the 3 evictions have all been dismissed.Sadly I heard a realtor(here) make the claim that people who get evicted had to be due to neglect to pay their rent.

Make sure when you amend the lease that you include the tenant needs to care for both appliances (ie clean the lint trap after each load) and use appropriate detergents.

Would the house still smell from the cats even if there is no carpet???

My STR and LTR's are all schedule E.Unless you are cooking them breakfast or offering daily cleaning with a turndown service you will be on a schedule E.

No need for any overpriced education, just read books on real estate investing during your down time (I would recommend the "ABCs or Real Estate Investing" by Ken Mcelroy if you are brand new) and listen to the BP podcast when you're commuting, cleaning, cooking, etc.

We would ask about why they were in town (since we were not a major travel area), and we would decline any suspicious stays (i.e. had someone ask about waiving the cleaning fee because they "were not going to sleep" there with their one night stay.)

We take pride in having clean properties to attract multiple applicants which allows us to pick the very best ones.

If ANYONE needs introductions to the direct SPONSOR of a deal who has a clean background and ISN't under SEC investigation I'm happy to connect you.