Get a decent card table and 4 chairs, drape a table cloth over it.

Once you add-in the cost of utilities (especially heat), furnishings (couches, tables and chairs, beds, sheets, towels, table cloths, pots and pans and plates and silverware, napkins, toilet paper, TV's and radios, washer and dryer and refrigerator - yes, it's common for a long-term SFR not to include a washer, dryer, or refrigerator - etc, etc, etc), plowing/lawn/trash (or HOA fees), cleaning, extra repairs and maintenance (I promise that a long-term house renter takes better care and causes less wear and tear than a revolving door of vacation renters), turnover management and screening, etc, etc, you are not making any more with the vacation rental than with the long-term SFR where the tenants pay all the utilities (possibly with the exception of water/sewer), and take care of the lawn and snow, and provide their own furnishings soup to nuts.

Provide separate, non-sentimental towels, bedding, glassware, flatware, furniture, tablecloths.  

Things were fixed perfectly, however, the contractor brought some minor damages, for example, scratching a large piece of the wall so heavy marks were left, breaking an espresso machine somehow by putting heavy tools on top of it, and tainting a few tablecloths and other personal items... 

Put a weatherproof table cloth on it? 

Bongs on the table, clothes, food, garbage everywhere.

Hi Christian,If you want to live a high end middle class lifestyle off of your wages you will save less.A brand new Lexus, and a tablecloth dinner out for you and the Mrs. with wine and all the fixings every Friday and a maid once a week will eat up a lot of what you could save.Cutting your lifestyle down to the basics for a while will let you sock more away.Good Luck! 

What does the apartment actually look like...did they just walk out one morning with coffee cups on the kitchen table, clothes in the closet, multiple pairs of shoes, medicine cabinet looking normal, perhaps with toothbrushes still in place?

I did that with our SFRs - we put in a kitchen table with tablecloth, several fake plants and used those Glad plug-ins to make it smell "homey".

For me, if I don't go to my W-2, my kids won't have enough food on the table, clothes on their back, their won't be gas in the car, etc... the GOAL for me is to not have to worry about those things, because I have a better plan than a W-2 job in place, to provide those things.