Another view is since water and sewer service fees can be liened by the the authority or municipality for non-payment and the property potentially condemned if the service shut off, I pay those and calculate it into my leases. 

Like many others have stated, I wonder what happens when things turn down heavily, but I also think it might be the main place people who would be good bets but get shut down by banks when they hit lockdown go to get funding, so it could be fine.

Once I got all the valves shut the water was fine.

For example, we have a large apartment complex under contract where we won't be able to submeter because the units don't have individual shut-off valves for the water. 

On my 4 units I have an outside spigot on each end of the building.Inside of the end unit under the stairs is the water main shut off for that unit along with the shut off for the outside spigot.A plumber can put a special key lock on the inside valve.This way nobody can use the spigot unless I want them to otherwise the water won't work outside.

The tenant said he was able to remove two but then he shut the door closed leaving two more squirrels in the bathroom until we hired pest control to come and retrieve them. 

Bill MitchellI once heard that for every 1% increase in the mortgage interest rates that people are shut out from qualifying for mortgages.I bought a property and wrote the contract that I would accept 16% interest.

Try looking at the townships north and west of Duluth. there's opportunities there for STR's without the Duluth city council taking the hotel money to shut you down. 

My last REO had so much clogged black pipe it took me weeks to get the water runing to the shut off's.

If you plan on doing a lot of business elsewhere then you might want to set it up in another state and if/when you liquidate your properties in California you can shut down the registration by telling the state that you are no longer doing business there.