So the quick version of this is:My mom moved from the area (sf bay area to so-cal) and kept her house here. I am the "property manager" for the time being.We did as much as we could to get the place rent ready in the ...

I feel like I need to re-bill this to the tenant since she made an unnecessary service request and that I shouldn't have to pay for it.  

., they inevitably would look worried about everything, and start pointing out unnecessary fixes that they thought should "also" be fixed.  

On the other hand I see a pet deposit as a unnecessary fee.

Newbies trust their life savings with strangers who are all-too-happy to provide "turn-key" investments that end up failing, due to their (I think deliberate) bad management and unnecessary maintenance costs, etc., and then they are happy to sell it for you - and do it again to the next sucker.  

If it turns out your letter was unnecessary, fine.  

They'll charge them to find the tenant, to do the eviction, tons of unnecessary maintenance, to find another loser tenant, if the landlord is still dumb enough to keep them, and when the landlord finally wises up, they'll charge a fee for firing them, then let another sucker in the door.  

Unless you did very poor DD I bet a lot of the other stuff you described was unnecessary as well. 

Don't take on other people's problems if unnecessary.  

A few requests trickled in after they began their tenancy (i.e. to upgrade blinds, etc), but I think they finally got the hint when I kept saying no and these sort of requests finally stopped and there haven't been any issues since.I have no problem at all repairing something that is broken and my responsibility, but I'm not in the business of making a bunch of unnecessary upgrades just to appease a needy tenant.I suggest you just explain to the tenant that you won't be doing any upgrades to the property at this point.