But when my wife truly realized I was doing this to create financial success for us and not putting us in harms way she became much more comfortable. 

Paint is cheap and does no structural harm to a house.That is a fair point that it could have been the first time and the parent may have stepped away for a moment.

City councils don't have a clue except that landlords are harming children and that's how this snowball started in Rochester, NY 10 years ago.     

We don’t know any PMCs to recommend in the area mentioned, but since selecting the wrong PMC is usually more harmful than selecting a bad tenant, you might want to read our series about “How to Screen a PMC Better than a Tenant”:https://www.biggerpockets.com/member-blogs/3094/91877-how-to-screen-a-pmc-better-than-a-tenant-part-1-services-and-processesWe recommend you get management contracts from several PMCs and compare the services they cover and, more importantly, what they each DO NOT cover.

Don't put yourself in harms way.

What's the harm really?

The buying opportunities in that period were crazy from other less capitalized/experienced owners at that time, one owner got a failed class A for 1/2 the value to build 5 years later for example.We typically perform very well in down markets, so not to wish harm to anyone, I am excited for the next cycle we’re buying makes much more sense again.  

I just don’t trust they’ll do a good job and potentially could end up harming the tree. 

If you intentionally are mean and do harm to others it will come back to bite you.

All the Rich Dad books (but they are full of motivation and mindset, but don't have any actual substance), I read and listened to many podcasts, while driving for my regular job, or while working on my "side gig" where I cut, split, and delivered firewood after work hours.