Avoid giving them your last name and have all correspondence mailed to a private mail box or ghost address - the same address your cell phone bill goes to.

UPDATE:so the tenant moved out as he said he would, on the 31st of August. he left everything a mess. i was dumbfounded, i let him know how displeased i was with the condition he left it. his reply was "well this is about normal for me being here as long as i was"..he did not trash the home it was just very very very dirty...carpet survived incredibly well for what the rest of the home looked like. also he took it upon himself to have verizon fios installed, not normally a problem except he had them mount the fios box in my laundry room !

People in Beverly Hills, CA have home alarm systems.Also, if you are all worried about agents not following directions and setting off your alarm, do not put a supra on the door, make sure all showing agents must contact you for a showing, then give them a combo box code for entry.

I always get an extra box or two of tile for breakage later on and save the extra grout in a zip lock bag for perfect tile repairs.

I dig in the attic, closets, under sinks, breaker boxes, everywhere there is to look before I make my first offer. 90% chance that if I am showing up to look at a house I am prepared to make an offer I'm just deciding on how low to go.

This box is checked, and my realtor is saying since this is checked, they can back out...

Just trying to be a little more out of the box!

There follows another story about little boxes with buttons operated via thumb-power used for... uhm... stuff and junk (picture much hand waving and imaginary thumb-texting.)

if you have flaking grout you can either saw away the chunks and regrout in spots or if you are insistent upon replacing the grout get a grout saw (at any big box store) and start the lengthy process of sawing out every last bit of that stuff.

And you can tag people by typing @ before you type their name, then clicking their name at the bottom of the message box.