Greed & Fairness: When a lot of investors are getting started in my experience they ask for too big a piece of the pie.

You can go knock on doors, drive neighborhoods for vacant looking homes and send letters, offer yourself to do footwork for an out of state investor, post on Craigslist, drop off hand made pieces or door hanger so to houses.

Tenant cut a piece of carpet out to put in it's place, about the width of the doorway and 8" tall.

You need a specific take off for every piece of the house factoring material, labor and time.

No, to me insurance is only one piece of the puzzle, but it leaves too much to chance.

I charged them $300 a piece per month.  

Three pieces of advice @Richard Oglesby...I would certainly agree with @Michael Woodward on reading the Millionaire Real Estate Agent. 

I have seen many speculative pieces over the past day on what is causing it, but it is just that - speculation.

now that's a bit of piece of mind. 

:) Now let's see if I've done the alerting piece right ;-)