I only have a moment and skimmed the thread, so this may have been brought up already...What did you do before when you rented a place together?

I skimmed through the new contract and it looked just like the last one.

I skimmed your story so I may be missing an important piece.

I am on the 2nd (porcelain) tile floor in my own kitchen over 20 years, and even with 3/4 subfloor, cement board, high strength thinset with flex agent, there are still about 6 or 7 hairline cracked tiles from where something heavy has been dropped on them - errant can, hot pot, milk jar, etc.

So it’s safe to say there’s a cow and now everyone else wants to milk it.

Send that, carefully worded so as not to give the impression of being indifferent to your tenants needs, and milk it long enough until the leaves stop falling. 

It's "underwriter discretion" on that one, and "underwriter discretion" is a bad place to be, since you as the borrower have zero control over if the underwriter's milk went bad ruining her breakfast that day, and you (presumably) don't want a half million dollar real estate transaction dependent on the expiration date on a $4 carton of milk.This is part of why CPAs and mortgage lenders are constantly at odds with each other, since great advice from a CPA focused on saving you tax dollars is often simultaneously horrible advice if you're goal is to buy a house next year and don't plan to pay cash.

I need to replace the cabinets, put down some LVT flooring, skim coat and paint the ceiling, but I'm unsure what to do with the walls. 

A lower rent allows you to skim off the cream of the crop. 

I suppose if I really wanted to skim off the top, I could look into setting up a Section 72 arrangement with the irs.