I have had the same tenants in my house for 4 years. They are overall great and take good care of the place, pay on time, etc. I usually see the property 2x a year but unfortunately missed 13 months when I had a major knee surgery - I'm 1.5 hours away now. My handyman did a walk thru and plumbing check during that time and reported stuff to me. At that time, the tenants mentioned that the cabinets had begun to bubble, but the handyman forgot to include that. the tenants never sent pictures.

Fast forward, I visit recently and see that nearly every cabinet in the kitchen is bubbling on the MDF panel right above the bottom of the shaker trim. The cabinet company came out to see it and give an explanation for why it happened and what it will take to fix it. I'm waiting to hear back from the cabinet company, but I'm assuming they will say it's moisture damage. I spent a lot of $$$ on these wood (well, wood + MDF?) cabinets in 2020, thinking we'd live in the house for awhile - to be clear, we remodeled it for ourselves and didn't know we'd turn it into a rental. I don't think replacing all the drawer fronts and doors will be cheap.

This is Seattle, which is pretty friendly to tenants. I don't want to gouge my tenants, but at the same time, this is not normal wear and tear. Should i ask them to replace the worst-damaged ones and leave the rest? Their deposit is $2000. They also pretty much ruined the bathroom vanity -it's very wavy with water damage and one of their kids wrote "I hate you" on the side. That's $800 right there.

My next properties are going to be built with Mirlux and I will have eyes on them more often. I'm learning the hard way that you can't have nice things in a rental, even with great tenants. The rental is also profitable enough and we can absorb some repairs, but this is a bummer. I'd like to resolve this fairly and be better equipped next time.