NO bad soil like some states from Texas through Mississippi. decent landlord laws. 

We require the dog is fully vaccinated and does not dig in the yard, soil in the house, cause general damage.

Based on talking with a few people it sounds like my only option is to chip up the patch and have an abatement company come out to remove the asbestos underneath the patch. 

Each document had the LLC name above where we signed and then we signed our name underneath it.

If the stairs had rot underneath and there was no visible damage by the naked eye, then is that negligence? 

And yeah the soil here can be tenuious.

I noticed most of the ones in need of some TLC are charging much lower rents.The one surprise I had was a busted cooper waterline that runs underneath (or within) the slab.

With any lock together flooring you want a fairly consistent floor underneath the installation.

I have an Oreck Carpet scrubber that does a decent job on normal amounts of soil, and we rely on a local carpet cleaning company for anything beyond that, so either way we've got more time or money wrapped into clean carpets than we would in clean hard surface floors.So far, we haven't removed carpet and found wood floors worth finishing, but if we did that is the route I would take. 

Drop the price into the range of the neighbourhood and get out from underneath it.Consider the money and time spent as tuition :)