All carpet, padding, vinyl removed, then cleaning air handler and vents, chimney, dryer vent, replaced oven range hood & bathroom fans, trashed the cabinets (were 30 years old and gross by that time, anyway), sanded down all doors and trim that were good enough not to just rip out, actually sanded the interior of the fireplace, ordered new windows (old metal ones needed replacement, anyway) and exterior doors, then cleaned everything with several applications of TSP, concrete slab downstairs with gallons of white vinegar to neutralize the cat odor which you could smell once the cigarette smell abated, then used Kilz original on all walls, ceilings, sub flooring, trim, doors, everything but slab where tile was going.  

Did you find them to be pretty neutral and objective? 

/yearWhen I run the numbers depending on what I use for maintenance and vacancy I get a slightly negative ($100-$200) to neutral monthly cash flow, which is clearly not ideal.

I have purchased properties that were cash neutral because they were priced a little below market but mostly because I was convinced that there would be both property and rent appreciation.  

Survivorship bias is a dangerous thing to build an investment thesis on.And you might be right about a neutral observer seeing opportunities differently.  

Most electrical appliances have a dedicated neutral plug today (the big blade on the plug), and the ground wire and the neutral wire in an electrical panel are connected anyway (you can take the cover off and see how they are connected).

Now with a more neutral market sellers are looking for more regular sales and qualified buyers.

The GFCI functions by sensing the amount of current in the hot and the amount of current in the neutral, and if those two currents do not match to within some small difference a ground fault is "declared" and the device trips - the ground current is not measured, it is assumed to be the difference between hot and neutral currents.

As scary as this sounds you might just want to knock on the front door and offer to meet at a neutral spot for coffee.  

As far as color, I can tell you that neutral colors always win.