Honestly, even if I hadn't found a tenant in June or July (which would have been unusual), I would not have chased them for more than the security deposit I already had that covered July. 

Note sure how dumb this was but it was definitely unusual.

In an effort to relieve the tension he said he just had never worked with someone who was trying to do what I was trying to do.My question is this: is house hacking that unusual? 

It's not unusual to make (or save) them several percentage points by going above and beyond in a transaction.

It would also be unusual for a title company to open escrow without an executed sales contract.

@Ben - I'm sorry to hear the mess they made; unfortunately is not unusual for tenants to act like this (sometimes out of pure negligence and some other's out of life's circumstances - please note I'm not condoning their behavior) Steve is right; here in Texas (I'm in Austin) the landlord/property management company has 30 days in which to account - in writing - expenses due a tenant after move out.

Not impossible, but unusual.  

So, I get wanting to find out what's going on.Other than the obvious things you'd notice, such as dwindling reserves, unusual maintenance costs, evictions that shouldn't have been necessary if screening was good, etc., maybe there would be a compromise. 

It is an unusual here in Mississippi to have really cold temperatures.

From your description it sounds like this was mechanical failure or perhaps a faulty installation issue with the water meter and it resulted in an unusually high water bill.