This is money paid by the tenant and held by the landlord to pay for any damage beyond ordinary wear and tear the tenant might do to the rental unit, any unpaid rent, or any money the tenant owes to the landlord under some agreement.

In my market...Washington DC...this actually would not be totally out of the ordinary.  

my mom's tenant was from Egypt and suddenly deported -- something about employment visa expired.. which bewilders me cause so many Brits get away with it, but not mideasterners!

This scenario does not sound at all unusual, I wonder why you think this practice is out of the ordinary?

The advantage of having the real estate professional designation is that your passive real estate investments all become active income, meaning you can currently deduct passive losses against your ordinary income.

lol the one (joke) that was left there is gold, anyway :) i've posted after several dirty bastards before, but nothing out of the ordinary. 

I like my tenants to be ordinary.

Tenants are responsible for any maintenance that can be handled by an ordinary homeowner.

Hey everyone I'm a big fan of the forums and podcast and this question may be a little out of the ordinary but here it is.I live in the SF Bay Area and have some very loud, dirty and overall disrespectful neighbors who are renting next door.I had a friend do a title search and found that the home is owned by investors in San Jose (about an hour from here) how should I go about addressing these issues.They regularly party late until about 12am in their small backyard with a stereo outside cranked up, BBQ at 11pm and the smoke fills our master bedroom, my wife is pregnant and can't sleep with all this and it's taking everything in me to not go over there (my wife doesn't want me too).

Eventually you have to put your foot down, but none of these things seem out of the ordinary for a tenant to request, just to see what you'll do.