You need to hire a lawyer experienced in the law otherwise you risk being take to court by your tenants.Until you learn the laws you should stop dealing directly with tenant issues.

I got this fix and flip around October of last year and the contractor I had hired was always behind and lying to me about actually being at the property and fixing things up.

yes that will most likely disqualify it from VA. you should just remove it. call a local contractor to see how, if they don't want to do it they may be kind enough to tell you how to. since its not popcorn ceiling the chances of it hurting you are almost 0. once it's removed, get your home tested for air quality and provide that to the VA loan officer and you should be good to go

You said "stuff" twice in your posting, so you're going to have to clean it out and provide what is necessary, possibly hire a staging company to assist since you are a realtor and must know of one.2. 

simply hire a plane and put the offer on an aerial banner.. to be flown over the sellers home.document it.. 

Hire a cleaner to clean the house, they split the cost like its a utility or lawn service. 

If you want to scale and build a business, hire out the inspection and get the next deal started. 

Might be possible to enclose the area where the pipes, water heater and furnace are and add a vent in the floor above to allow warm air into that area. 

Which leads to my second point: here is a recipe for crashing and burning that everyone should be familiar with because it happened repeatedly in '08-'10. 1) Buy houses with 15% down in neighborhoods that have a lot of competition for rentals and would face downward pressure on rents in a bad economy; 2) hire property managers for about 10% of the take because the houses are more than you can handle personally, 3) make sure the cash flow is below $400 a month, and preferably right around $0; 4) have few assets in the bank or liquid; 5) wait for an economic crisis.Point being, you can be on too fast a track such that when the music stops, you have no place to sit.

My guess is the 190K bid is hiring cheaper labor but who knows.