I'm also a landlord, but my wife is handier than me so she does all that blue collar stuff. (Except for plumbing stuff and electrical stuff, she hates that.) Pretty sweet deal for me! The trick is to get tenants who don't suck, and then when you don't screw them over and respond to their issues, everyone is happy. I don't get why everyone doesn't do it this way. My first tenants were awesome and I was great to them. My house was built in the 1870's and flooded during Katrina (which made it pretty cheap, obviously), so the maintenance is a little trickier than the average place. It's been a crapshoot since that couple, though. Sometimes the good ones turn to horsefeathers over time. I've had good luck with yuppie stoners. Find them and make them stay.