"McAllen was recognized as the third safest city by SmartAssest.com, which analyzed a core set of common safety factors, including the following five metrics: violent crime, property crime, vehicular mortality rate, drug poisoning mortality rate and the percentage of the population engaging in excessive drinking."

There is no doubt that REI in Section 8 is risky, but the entry point is attractive with leveraged yields well in excess of what you can achieve in regular REI.  

Doubling seems excessive unless they went from $500 to $1000. 

I just had about $700 in excess water charges due to running toilets!  

This is a good question that people on here should be able to give you ideas about what seems appropriate and what would seem excessive.

So, even if 1 property has excessive expenses in a given year the other properties carry it.

Pest control- we put mouse bait out along the fencelines and under the units, mow excess weeds and grass.

When a tenant moves out, transfer the deposit back to Checking so it's ready to apply towards expenses or refund the Tenant.If you end up with excess funds in the Checking account, I recommend you transfer it to a third account designated explicitly for future investments.

Due to the excessive demand of shelter in NYC the city had to develop strategic programs to assist people with moving out of shelter and with the explosion of rent prices in NYC many people are looking to other cities close to NYC such as Newark, Irvington, Jersey City, etc.. to find apartments they can afford. 

I took that and poured fuel on the fire, went from spending 10K-20K a year to 100K a year on tax liens and started attending more local tax sales, couple years later I was selling multiple properties a year.