Also open to hearing other ideas for this situation.

It kind of reminds me of that George Carlin saying "They don't want a population capable of critical thinking, they want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation."

That’s a very loaded question, as it’s highly specific to your situation.

I'm sorry to hear that you have ended up in this situation, unfortunately it does happen sometimes.  

Newbie here.I’m curious of a possible situation where I build a small 2 bedroom guest house in my back yard for a short term rental.

And you're right, anytime I've gotten a different answer from multiple people in code enforcement on this topic. 

I am wondering, if by doing this, I will make the situation more complicated than it should be. 

I usually look up the foreclosure auction online through the county clerk and read up on what the whole situation is.  

I was in a somewhat familiar situation last year when I started in sales.

I am not sure that we would ever do that again but it helped the situation.