Campybob, you are a very negative person, all is a failure in your eyes, you subscribe to Murphy's Law, it's no wonder you have ex wives and problems with rental property.
I came from California to Indiana to buy property cheaper and to be able to make a living at renting property, I couldn't do that in California with rental properties starting at over a million dollars where I lived, you could never collect enough rent to cover the cost of the building, but investors there bought that stuff knowing that they couldn't make enough money on the rents but hoping instead to cash in when they sold the property in about 5 yeas, but California lost it's luster there too. Where I live the rents are low, but so is the cost to buy, and I can live off the rents here but I can't sell the property and expect big profits in the sale like they use to be able to do in California.
No I can't take it with me, but I can give it my surviving family, and if there is no surviving family or as in your case they're all haters then i'll give everything to a charity of my choice, but it took hard work to get my family where they're at today, but not just me alone but by my wife and my kids all worked hard, so I know my stuff won't be handed to charity unless the kids want to do that then I'm fine with that, but it's for them and their retirement too and they know that fact.
I happen to enjoy being a landlord, sure there's problems as there is with any business, it's just the name of the game and you're definitely not a player. Any business will have bankers and lawyers so what? I don't rent houses any more I sold those so could buy complexes of 6 or more, and never had a tenant trash the place, can that happen? of course, but again it's a business and you have to be prepared for such events and be able to take it mentaily, you are simply one of those people that should never go into business because you don't have the mentality for the downs, you think a business should be lined with gold bearing trees and just browse the flower covered lane and grab a bar or two when needed off a low hanging branch, no business works like that, why heck life isn't even remotely close to that!
Rental homes blown up by meth labs? That's funny stuff. If you're not doing your job as a landlord and never keep an eye on the property and you are a slum lord than I can see your point, problem is as soon as a meth lab is detected the law will confiscate the property from you anyways, at least here in Indiana they do. But I don't rent to those kind of people and I keep an eye on stuff. Some states like California and New York (and maybe a few others) are very liberal states, an eviction could take up to 13 months to get a deadbeat renter out, but in Indiana after 30 days delinquency I get a lawyer who sends paperwork over to the Sheriff's department and they serve notice to evict and they're gone in 10 days unless they want to push it through court but then after the hearing they'll have up to 30 days to clear out. Or the landlord can simply pay the renter $1,000 or so to vacate if the landlord doesn't want to wait, must deadbeat renters will take the money and run.