I gave the tenants the option to either maintain the lawn themselves or to have my lawn company maintain it at an additional cost in their rent.

If you were to buy a $100,000 home you would need $10,000 + closing costs to close.

We had to replace all of the carpets with wood, costing us over $5K.

Again, I'm not local so I'm just taking every cost and push-back on progress at face value.It's $80 per door, per year, plus the one time inspection fee, which I was thinking was $180, but don't recall exactly right now. 

my goal is to keep it as simple and low cost as possible.   

There is a significant upfront cost associated with this but I have calculated it will average 2.2 years per building to save the cost I’m currently paying for oil.

Hopefully they accept the increase because it sounds like it will cost you thousands to turn it over for a new tenant.

That gives me additional income and offsets the risk of loss if I have a longer vacancy once they leave. 25% sounds like a lot, but consider what it will cost them to find another rental in the next 30 days that will allow a three-month lease, plus the cost of moving, setting up utilities, etc.There's nothing wrong with trying to help out a good tenant, but don't hurt yourself in the process.

It's a cost of doing business.

If your operating costs are below the market, your NOI will likely be matched closer to the appraisal's market rents.