Long story short, the "master tenant" or so I was told, withheld the name and contact of the landlord when I moved in (listing found through craigslist), no contract was ever signed but got a receipt for the deposit amount I paid (approx half of first month's rent).

I can weed through 50 responses down to 3-4 good ones pretty quick simply by trolling profiles in a half hour I’ll know who will be a good fit .

I'm thinking huge potential for liability allowing someone to run an unlicensed half-way house for troubled youth....and now that you know about it you have no way to deny knowing what was going on.  

Would you be okay with the landlord just taking the previous tenants word for it that they did a good job, or paying only $85 for a half-assed cleaning job?

Being a handyman, about half my business comes from yelp so people really trust what is said there.

We have a go-to electrician and have been through several heating and cooling companies- it is hard to find anyone who can work on boilers consistently, and half our properties have boilers.Our rentals are a 15 minute drive away, and it's an odd week if I am not driving by at least once. 

I got on the phone right away and found out that only 1 side of the half double is for sale, and its a foreclosure.

He actually just finished building a house from the ground up all himself for my sister to live in for about half of what it ended up appraised at.

There's any number of reasons someone would bail out of a half done property but I highly doubt it was the original plan.

That would be great but unfortunately we're about 4 months short of 2 years. boy that's too bad sure would have waited 4 months to move.. although if its a duplex I suspect only half the property qualifies.. 500k tax free  in CA is about as good as it gets.