People are stupid sometimes and react in silly ways, in fact it happens all the time.Finally, after my first advice of do and say nothing, if you do receive paperwork from a lawyer, do not delay and take that paperwork straight to your lawyer and go from there.

And as far as it being okay with fair housing - my point was that if you bend the rules now for anybody - black, white, gay, Section 8, Asian, Native American, huge family, whatever - and you decide you want to go back to your original criteria - you might not be able to.  

i am a bit wary due to the potential liability but want to make sure i am not over-reacting. thanks

And again those are situations that you as an individual work out in your own way given your financial condition and how you feel about a certain tenant.. my classic was the tenant who told my PM they just had a new baby ( which I believe they did) record cold winter they could not afford heat and rent could I do something.. so of course I say sure.. don't pay two months and add it to the rent and pay over the course of the coming year.. end of two months they up and left  LOL. and for sure I can see how investors that are highly leveraged with little to no real reserves might react differently than those who might own the real estate free and clear or if they missed a month or two of rent its just no biggee 

How would you react if you were in their shoes?

You are always going to pay a trip fee w most competent service businesses.It sounds from his over reacting that he is stressed out and possibly going through some tough times himself.

Maybe I'm over-reacting and plagued by fear-of-missing-out...

Lol I believe you made a similar comment on my last post and my tenants ended up reacting the exact opposite way :) They were grateful and we collected every single one of our rents.

How would you react if you have more properties than you could cover with your W2 income?

They always pay on time and I always react in a timely way to any repair issues.