I've made a few comments about the popular press exaggerating the drawbacks of being a landlord .  Managing any business means dealing with customers - owning income producing properties is no exceptions.  Manage your customers (your tenants) well and they'll make your life easy. 

But you can't manage 'em well if you've picked the wrong ones, as this story from the Bay Area Mercury News shows.  A San Jose tenant is charged with killing his landlord and torching the property.  The article says that the tenant was not there when firefires responded to the blaze, but "showed up several hours later and did not appear curious about what had happened" according to police.  Hmmm.....

Well violence and arson are a worst case situation, but the first step to tenant management is screening candidates before they sign on the dotted line .  There were a lot of dodgy signals in this case that should have been heeded - the suspect had a history of scrapes with the law and an established track record of anti-social behavior.  Having a vacancy is bad, but filling a vacancy with a bad tenant is a thousand times worse.  You already knew this, but it's always good to hear again.