It's just not a very profitable business, you are working yourself into the ground to make other peoples "passive income" work for them, being paid very little in return, and getting lumbered with all the problems.

Having those types of tenants I have seen suck the life out of other landlords over time.I will take an easy 12% all day long versus a hard 16% return for a highly intensive asset.Sounds like for the next year you might have to endure having a job with this property until you can unload it.Do any of the surrounding property owners want it?

You need to weed out and unload the losers yesterday.It also sounds like you are leaving money in properties to produce forced cash flow.

Or does she want the lumber? 

Lumber liquidators has their 6mm product for sale for $0.29 to $0.35 a square foot many times.  

And I'm not a lawyer and don't live in CA but:http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/25605.htmlhttp://law.onecle.com/california/penal/26035.html"FIrearmS In tHe Home, buSIneSS or at tHe CamPSIte Unless otherwise unlawful, any person over the age of 18 who is not prohibited from possessing firearms may have a loaded or unloaded firearm at his or her place of residence, temporary residence, campsite or on private property owned or lawfully possessed by the person .

I would plan on exploring this from either Sheetrock wall on opposite side of opening up the wall from the tiled surface in the bathroom.You probably will not be able to keep the deposit in this case, and as you mentioned it was a 2 "flat" I am assuming you're in the greater Chicago metro and your L & T laws are very strict there.I would do as another post suggested and either have it repaired by current owner prior to closing to your satisfaction - meaning you are physically on the job site to witness extent of damage or lack there of due to water, or, renegotiate and ask for a concession for the issue - and this could be a moderately expensive problem depending on the length of time it has been leaking and given the possible location of the shower/bath to supporting wall etc should lumber need to be replaced.

I do not need to unload it at the end of a work day.

From experience I know that military moves are fast paced and stressful so I did a few things to ease their transition;Made sure they left Illinois with keys already in hand even though their lease wasn't officially started so they wouldn't have to go to a hotel or wait to link up with my agent for keys if they arrived at odd hours.Left Directv hooked up and operational so they could keep the kids entertained during unloading.Sent a large fresh fruit and snacks basket from Wine Country Gifts so they could have something immediately coming off of road trip food.Left them some furniture so they wouldn't have to get everything unloaded right away just to have a place to sit and relax after a long trip.Left them recommendations for the best vet in the area in case they had problems with their pets upon arrival.Just little things that I hope made for a little less stressful day 1.

Figuring out an equity partner would help greatly, especially if I want to buy more of his properties.Another concern I have is if I unload the same amount of capital into rental houses the cash on cash returns are better, much better.