@Laura PerryWelcome to BiggerPockets, the site I consider to be Best for Real Estate on the web. 

Reg D Resources has an example of their PPM for a multifamily fund on their web site.  

“but none of them were successful applicants who met our minimum criteria”Are you using a Web 2.0 service to verify and check applications?

It's a huge expense, especially here in CA, and we have the risk of water restrictions with the unreliable supply of water and all. 

Eventually, a thief will be desperate enough to get past them, but it is a decent deterrent.Housesitters: many investors use them, but they are also unreliable.

Do you get them from a site on the web, create your own?

I am looking for a web site that will list apartment buildings that are either in foreclosure or fresh REO nationwide.

My biggest annoyance with the process thus far is that the MLS doesn't output lattitude/longitude coordinates for each property (that I can see, at least), so I have to use the property addresses copied from my Excel spreadsheet over to a web-based program that converts to Lat/Long.

I am utilizing their SEO operation, CRM program, Web Hosing and tying that all in with managed Google Ads. 

If you look at our web-site, her name is Sherell, under "our team".I agree with your overall assessment, these "management companies" are a joke when it comes to handling issues, we will never hire one, much rather hire someone and train them in-house.