He'd have you eating rice and beans and putting budgeted cash into envelopes, but it's up to you how deep you want to go with it.Hard for anybody to give you solid advice without knowing your situation fully, but I think all can agree that your proposed plan comes with too much risk for your mother.

The refrigerator needs to be fixed pretty quickly, food will spoil, so unless the owner likes paying for tenant eating out.

You may have to eat the cost of the treatment for preventative maintenance purposes and possibly divert the cost of treatment to the tenant should they not follow proper treatment preparations resulting in the pest control company not able to perform the service.

@James Green I'm interested in this deal.

Vegas and Arizona are easier to get into but if you plan to manage your own properties prepare for the time to drive out there, if you plan on having a PM, plan on it eating into your cash flow. 

And if not...check the local mgt fees, in many places they are so high they eat all profits.

Closing costs and taxes will eat those measly appreciation gains up.  

@Patrick Rowe man im sitting here eating popcorn reading this thread, i have no idea what you guys are talking about, man this seems crazy, and very risky and a normal person would say you might in over your head....But dude i love it...Shoot for the stars and make it happen...Good Luck on this one, waiting for the success story....

This stuff just eats mold

However, that will eat into your profit margins.