I stumbled upon a piece of land in NC that I think would work for an apartment complex or subdivided for single family houses.

There is a public housing complex with 1-3 bed apartments and an apartment complex with 24,  1-2 bedroom units.

Like, its an apartment complex and you want to monitor the parking lot and laundry area.For starters, I would look into the legalities of doing whatever it is you are looking to do, best place to start. 

So they file in court a mechanics lien to recoup their expenses/court fees.

If they convict it is probably only 30 days if it is a first offense and the criminal courts are backed up too.   

If the tenant takes you to court and you have no proof, the judge may not rule in your favor. 

But, you'd have to go to court to evict, so if the pet isn't doing damage, it might not be worth it.

My goal is to build a small hotel or rental complex right after.

@Susan Maneck - Yes, eliminating your rent can be a huge form of "yield", living in your property gives you huge tax incentives upon sale and in New York you would rather avoid anything over 4 units due to rent control and rent stabilization complexities as a newbie investor.

The attorney said that in court he will win because the easement agreement has a mistake in it and the judge will take the side of the neighbor since they had a fence there for already a long time.