The state of Texas considers that a huge health issue and they can be evicted in 24 hours for just that.

decisions regarding repairs are the sole purview of the landlord excepting health and safety issues.  

Worst case, we wait too long, it forcloses, screws the homeowner who has serious health problems, loses the bank money, and keeps us out of a house that would work well for our family.

Buy at big discounts and put down health down payments to get it to cash flow3.

RE money has highs and lows, when you couple it with now having a company sponsored health plan, I am in far better shape doing both...If/when my Real Estate activities make me 3 times what my JOB does in consistent income, I may consider quitting.

In some cities check to see if there Health Department work orders.

Possibly health dept. regulations.

But your occupancy limit must be clearly tied to health and safety or other legitimate business needs.

Any repair that affects the usefulness of the property, health, safety, welfare, etc gets same day attention.

@Nichole Wall Work with your contractor to partition the list of renovation items into categories based on priority: "critical" (health & safety of tenants, integrity of building, rely upon it); "high" (will allow you to increase revenue, obvious short term payback); and "should happen" (all those things you really should do, but that have not immediate benefit and could wait until you are doing something from one of the other two categories).