If the place is indeed empty (no food, clothing, medications, personal electronics, etc.), and the father himself has turned off the utilities, it's considered abandoned.

I have a reminder in my phone for 3 days ahead of the due date to electronically make payment so I dont lose than 0% rate.  

We've been slowly, but steadily, moving to electronic locks which we can manage remotely and if necessary, audit the access history.

I would switch to an electronic method of collecting rent or add a rent drop box to your porch; leave maintenance requests outside your door.  

My question is to landlords who have installed electronic or push button locks on 3 families. 

The bank never should have deducted the money from the tenant's account in the first place.These days, there are electronic copies of all checks online, so the bank should have no trouble verifying their mistake.

I don't just want the rent to come in automagically and electronically, I want the application fee, the security deposit and any other $ to follow the same path.  

That way the tenant will have a working detector so long as they do not confiscate the batteries to power their electronic toys  :)

We are moving to electronic locks which can be accessed via our in-house monitoring system.  

Paypal depends, u have to set it up like giving money to friends or you'll be charged. you can get 12 deposit slips have them mail it to your bank, but bank must know what to do with them.and if you accept electronic payments it may delay your eviction time.