They said the company who they hired to clean up everything will determine when my renter can go it, which they are not telling anybody anything.  

I'm a freelance writer, journalist and blogger covering various aspects of the commercial real estate industry, from developing, to legislation, to tips and tricks, to markets to investing and more.

There's been many a post written on BP on hiring contractors and doing your due diligence, the least of which starts with going to the Contractors Board website for your state and seeing if they are indeed licensed, and bonded. 

The last painter I hired, which granted is a fairly modest job compared to what many contractors are doing on your major renovation projects, my dude gave me copies of all the receipts + a summary of receipts page, as well as a bill showing his hours worked and hourly wage, and a final piece of paper that literally had $Parts + $Labor = $TotalBill.I felt that this was uber transparent and really appreciated it.

I had a former employee who claimed to work as contract before I hired him.  

As soon as you can afford it you need to hire Team members to help you.  

Obviously we could hire another appraiser to do an appraisal to come up with a sales price, or I could just make him an offer before the process starts.Any insight from someone who has been in a similar situation would be greatly appreciated!

You can hire a surveyor and set your corners..

I'd like to give it another try but wondering if it's worth it ( either the time to post, or the money to hire a VA longterm to do it) 

Never heard of anyone hiring out an abatement outfit for that.