Lots of students want good, cheap housing and won’t shy away from holes in the wall or other cosmetic issues, and will rent by the bedroom.

Unless there were holes in the walls or something that looked obviously damaged by them, I could see the wear and tear defense being accurate.

But the damage caused by hanging them (namely puddying the holes and touch up paint, or repainting walls if touching up doesn't work) will come out of their deposit. 

Similar to how banks were buying 2% coupons and 3% MBS's over par during ZIRP which has led them to be Billions in the hole in unrealized losses.   

We completed this project with (2) holes in the back yard and 2 holes inside the home (bathroom and laundry).

Your annual income was around 105-110k/year for fun PLUS you now have a huge annuity.Please if anyone sees holes in this, let me know, as this is my future strategy should I be in the same boat (wanting to quit landlording).

I think wholesaling started out as someone exploiting a "blind hole" in the existing real estate process....eventually, enough people felt they got scammed and made some noise.The handful number of deals I listed from a wholesaler were enough to convince me that I don't want to list a property brought by a wholesaler...they don't yet own the property, and they try to make money off the ignorance of the "owner of record". 

For example, a broken fridge door, broken window, holes in walls…Normally I would repair it but what if it’s becoming a constant thing?

I'm still down the rabbit hole of all this.

No credit score by itself is not necessarily an issue, but it creates a big hole in the information puzzle.