I'm either a little weird, extremely fortunate, or (more likely) both, in the respect that material things don't really mean much to me, and both my wife and I have been financially successful at this point in our lives. 

Maybe something easier and more short term: get a photo for my account :) Since the start of the year i have been voraciously consuming material on real estate with BP podcasts and two books, have been building my network in many Canadian/American areas (thank you BP community), and have started to study a number of different markets (Squamish, Kelowna, Thunder Bay Ontario, and Edmonton) to try and find my best options.

I was going to research it and get the stuff to do it myself, but found that to do it properly, it was going to cost nearly as much for the material I needed, and I didn't know what I was doing, so the risk was it would end up looking worse than it already did.

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/52/topics/924...Some good reading material on this topic 

I am just trying to follow BP's policy by avoiding any form of self-promotion by publicly mentioning the company I work for.  

Another material you can use is phenolic resin "solid surface material" like Corian. 

The second contractor that I hired came in and completed his job and even corrected mistakes that he made.On my second whole house rehab I used a retail contractor and I pushed to keep cost down by purchasing my materials and stay within my timeline ( no that didn't work too well) I will be embarking on another rehab soon and I need to find honest contractors who work with rehabbers to help keep cost down and stay on the time line.I live in the DMV ( DC, Maryland , Virginia area ) and need some good recommendations.

Eviction based on noise or smoking would be considered a termination of the lease due to material noncompliance.

You need to line up all your materials and workers ahead of time and do whatever break down possible before they leave, but it can be done.

Will they property document material costs and time spent on performing labor?