There are a couple people here that can help you out, but most will not understand the CA real estate scene nor how to invest this quantity of money..... ( altho they think they do and will try to help you spend yours) 

And I would do granite, but we don't have a minimum charge and that tiny kitchen would cheap to do.

I now live in a 424 square foot 1 bedroom apartment, the last two I was in were very tiny studios, one being only 115 square feet.I cook and I can. 

A lot of contractors will get just about everything done then leave a bunch of the tiny finishing stuff because they will make more money spending their time on other projects, since they already got just about all your money.

Two of them are section 8 and only pay a tiny amount, so it makes no sense.

One month rent at 650 and a 250 per deposit (she has a tiny lap dog from my understanding.

Even if you just had one tiny old lady living upstairs, it can sound like an elephant when you're downstairs, and some people are more sensitive to the sounds of someone walking around above them - I'm one of them, which is why I only rent the top floor unit when I rent.Is there any way you could get them to swap apartments? 

I rented mostly really tiny studios, so there were few couples, but the ones I had apply after the above example all had decent credit or no credit - I had a lot of immigrant techies apply and I didn't worry if they had zero credit.

Even though I was very friendly, I was also very firm on the building policies, which was really important in a 26 unit building shaped like a "U" made up of mainly tiny studios, where many of them could hear everything that was going on in the other units. 

They will notice every tiny thing and forever view the unit as a unit that hasn't been maintained properly, and that the landlord is a slumlord and they will regularly complain about all kinds of stuff.Whereas, if you wait to show the unit when it's smelling like fresh paint and is all clean, they will have an impression that it's well-maintained and problem-free.