At one point she was crying telling me she didn't care if she lived or died anymore and she had cut her wrists a few weeks ago (in MY unit, no less!)

Just choose how you want to live.The concept of tankless sounded great but there is maintenance on the heater coils and, for some models, there is a longer delay in getting hot water out the faucet.Yes, there is maintenance, but it is less than on forced air furnace: you are supposed to clean the filter (which is a wire mesh).

Fortunately for her and eventually me, she married a man who owns his own auto shop who got her into a business mindset, which she tried to get me into simply by telling me I should open my own and read some book about a guy and his 2 fathers.

I told my wife at the beginning of 2019 that we would purchase our first investment property by the end of the year, and luckily for me, she will hold me too that! 

Depending on the damage.What I have found that works out, is to scrape what is loose, use a 45 or 90 minute set powder/water mix mud to fill in those areas smooth, and get the sheets of sticky back mesh (just like the mesh dry wall tape).

Can this hole could be fixed with just the joint compound/mesh method, instead of the more involved method where you cut out a square of drywall around the hole?

It's possible to refinish laminate by stripping the finish off of the surface and re-applying finish - sometimes this is done chemically, but it can also be done w/ fine mesh screen.

I’m not going the Turo route - real estate is where it’s at for me - but I will ask my friend and make sure he is taking the proper precautions with his Turo!

It can also be wire meshed and stuccoed to make smooth.

Can someone please help me shed some light into this?