Many people will spend a couple thousand on tax lien / sub taxes, then the county tears down the house and liens it for 10K+ and the vacant land is worth less than that. 

The reality is the opposite - if it's not in writing then the PMC doesn't have to provide the service or can charge extra for it!

Decide why you are investing, create some goals around that, then plan a strategy to hit those goals and milestones along the way. consider you time, energy and capital you have and each of those lifestyle dimensions.

The reality is the opposite - if it's not in writing then the PMC doesn't have to provide the service or can charge extra for it!

If they give you any further problems and you think it would be easy to rent the property to someone else then allow them to break the lease.

If the goal is to build passive income and generational wealth then the approach you may need to change is considering what kind of sacrifice are you willing to make in the short term to realize the long-term goal.

A prospective renter would have to spend a few minutes rifling through her stuff to find the money and then leave her room in the condition she claims.

If you see comps in the $800k to $850k for the home (no adu) then once you renovate the home - by itself it will be valued like other homes like it that are renovated (likely around $900k ish) Be careful with numbers mentioned and do your own homework of course. 

And then I didn't call for a long time while we tried to manage out of state for the first year.

If they want to move, that is fine; if neither do, then the unit that needs TLC is the one you should move into-get that fixed up and when the other tenant moves, you move into that unit and rent out the one you fixed up.