Stained concrete is great, you can also do a diy which is an acid wash to open the pours, roll on a stain, roll on your sealant and voo - laa.

About two weeks ago the Tenant texted me saying the house flooded with raw sewage again, after the washing machine on the second floor dumped water into the sewer pipes.

My property manager did a walk through and said everything looked fine outside of some minor repairs but was advised that the washing machine was broken.

I leave a package of soap in each dish in the bathroom tubs and sinks (or if there are soap dispensers make sure these are filled) and leave a small bottle of dish washing liquid by kitchen sink/small box of those dishwasher pellets in rental properties with dishwashers.

High maintenance people are not a protected class :-)The wife was showing a property on Friday, the house needs to be pressure washed, but you have the problem of getting the water turned on etc, and in these circumstances we are upfront with the tenant, if you take the house, get the water turned on before you move in and then we'll jet wash it, no problem and give you $5 for the water we use.It's just easier to do that.

Careful when you wash the walls because the paint will come of with it! 

I don't want to deal with break-downs or complains that they don't do a good job washing or drying.

It went from things like wanting me to let them have a washing machine in the unit even though the owner said no to them and after I explained it's because the pipes can't handle it and sorry, I'm not losing my job over it for you (in a very nice way) -- furious reaction, no more friendship.... to wanting me to tell their neighbor to stop having such loud sex (not kidding) and when I said I don't tell other tenants how to have sex (again in a very nice way, while giggling no doubt), I lost that friendship. 

Reasonable cleaning costs would include the cost of such things as eliminating flea infestations left by the tenant's animals, cleaning the oven, removing decals from walls, removing mildew in bathrooms, defrosting the refrigerator, or washing the kitchen floor.

Our landlord, on the other hand, never hears from us, we pay rent on time, and we keep her place clean and maintained nicely -- it actually looks way better now than it did when we moved in, because we've repaired crumbly wall sections, spackled holes/dents, touched up scratched doors and floorboards, de-stained the linoleum, replaced cracked lightswitch plates, power-washed the patio, washed the blinds (the landlord didn't, there was cat hair embedded in them from a previous tenant, which by the way the landlord wasn't aware of anyone having a cat, LOL), etc.