While the law does not clearly define abandonment, a landlord is definitely allowed to consider the property abandoned and rekey, remove and securing the tenants belongings and go about the business of renting the property to a new tenant.  

I started by double checking my leases and found they are really deficient when it comes to defining garbage removal from the house.

I am definately leaning toward the house in the better location, but will pursue both for now.

For the purposes of this Inspection Amendment, Premises is defined to include only the residence, any garage and any attached improvements to the residence."

Define your success; don't let anyone else define it for you.   

Spend sometime on defining your vision, set up goals to achieve your vision, work towards your goal and make things happen. 

Be careful not to discriminate against protected classes as defined in the Fair Housing Act.If you want to look at a sample of our Rental Criteria and Tenant Screening Questions you can download them from Bigger Pockets... look under the Resources tab - File Place - Other Documents.

With my limited knowledge of investing in US.1) select a market, choose emerging market with the best job growth.2) know your product, whether SFH, Multi, raw land, storage, land development, commercial or industry...3) define your strategy- buy & hold, flip, wholesale ...4) assemble your ground team- realtor, property manager...etc & ask them for referral for contractors, home inspectors.5) make connections with local investors , BP is the best place( I wish I found BP earlier).6) get help with legal entity structure & cross border accountant, set it up properly.7) visit the area you are going to investment.

If you want to debate semantics, I'm up to the task however the better solution, in my mind, is to better define the role and deferent use yourself from the boneheads.

The key is to define each persons responsibility...asset acquisition, financing, construction management, lease negotiations...etc.