This isn't the sole factor but it certainly helps mitigate the risk for someone looking to break into the business.

In your experience, doing criminal background checks, credit history, employment history and eviction history helps mitigate these issues with tenants? 

Hire out the dangerous and heavy jobs.

Adding a water leak sensor or protective measures to prevent damage might mitigate the risk.

However, is cashflow wrong and dangerous for most ?

We saw some cased and legal precedent that steered us away...Curious if you were previously contracting the 3rd party company due to risk mitigation or just convenience and if you changed gears due to improved confidence in your staffing or better SOPs that you feel good about giving it another go? 

Would an operating agreement help mitigate the risks?

If you keep your properties in good condition and put your tenants in a dangerous position and act prudently, you win IMO.

Perhaps renegotiate the contract to a MTM along with their payment plan in order to mitigate your risk in the event of an eviction. 

Income from STRs is generally considered active income if you’re directly managing the property, which typically subjects it to a 15.3% self-employment tax.To mitigate this liability, strategic entity structuring can be effective.