He claims a mink coat was stolen and from what I can see, a bogus claim, A co-worker of mine had a tenant with a burglary, claims dozen pairs of designer shoes worth $500/pair were stolen and she tells me it's also a bogus claim.

How did you keep the coat so low?

This takes a while and can be pricy, but if you're working in a high-end historic house it can work wonders.If you're a true glutton for punishment and have a wall that has significant cracking and problems, you can order 3' wide adhesive fiberglass mesh, apply it, and skim coat the whole shebang.

Will spray on metal primer plus a few coats of metallic paint work? 

Brick isn’t meant to be painted, and painting it is difficult (lots of prep, lots of coats, has a chemical compound that rejects paint).

@Patrick BergeronA fresh coat of paint and clean up the yard if you are trying to work around the tenant

Learn to skim coat.

This however does not work for dresses and longer coats, but those are also fewer in number, so you could run hooks in the area the clothes are now.

The worst included removing wallpaper from walls that were not painted or sized-- so all the downstairs drywall had to be sealed and skim coated.

Builders treat the concrete for this cracking along with sometimes using a thing coat of sheeting to prevent the cracking from hitting the tile.