Converting to apartments would be cost prohibitive and apartments in this area wouldn't attract the tenants I'd want to work with.So I'm looking for new ideas ...any ideas are welcome!

You are a prohibited person- you can not stay temporarily or permanently at any property the IRA owns.

I'm sure you'll get all kinds of different opinions about this and each state has different laws - some prohibit late fees.

In any case it's an issue of assignment of income which is prohibited. 

Some places don't have prohibitions on having multiple meters or connection points, others do, and still others will require some kind of inspection to make sure you're not creating illegal residential units.

If my wife and I start investing in real estate and we set up a solo 401k to access our IRA funds can we both rollover our traditional IRA's into the solo 401k trust account, in effect consolidating our funds to access them for real estate investing, or would the IRS prohibit us from combining our funds in this way?

However, it is legal to prohibit building damage.

If you go this way, just make sure you are not providing funds for a prohibited party (you, your spouse, ancestors and lineal descendants, etc.)

Usually when government tries to control behavior though, people find a way around it (prohibition is a good example). 

You will need to restore the property to the original condition upon your surrender of the property OR leave it in place as my property.Personally, my lease has a clause prohibiting all modifications and if they are performed, they become the property of the Leasor.