After managing my first rental, I believe that setting rental standards/requirements and doing a thorough background check is crucial to finding amazing tenants.

(I didn't technically lie because I did call the law firm and found out that they wouldn't take on cases with less than a $100K lawsuit.)Then I went to the California State Attorney's website and threatened to report him.

Not sure about a background check.

Their may be small fees to cover things like background/credit and then maybe expense deposits further down the road to cover legal.

I'm not a lawyer so could speak to the technical aspects of it.

Background/credit check, call their last two landlords, call their employer (to verify income and to ask about performance), and make your standards very clear.

I have a background with real estate since my family has long been invested out here in California.

Definitely not TLDR- I really appreciated the background info.

A little background info, wife and I bought or second property with a VA loan its a 4-plex in need of serious updating almost a year ago for roughly 275k loan amount of 245kI recently finished the remodeling and we had the va appraisal done for a va cash-out which came in at 400k which us a bit low due to lack of comps in the state. 

But this is our first deal and, while I my background in finance makes me good with numbers, my lack of experience in rehabbing properties makes any projections I make very questionable.