"Happy now?"
I can tell you are a rookie. I used to take it personally when tenants took me for a ride as well. For your own sanity, it is best if you stop that now.
Develop a non emotional method of dealing with deadbeats and stick to it. Don't even listen to tenant excuses. Accept that you will lose a certain amount to deadbeats as a price of doing business. If you cannot deal with deadbeats unemotionally, you should probably look for another line of work, as this one will drive you crazy.
Was a rookie. That was my first and only house for rent. We bought this ghetto home for $2,000. Sold it 2 years later for $3,000 which was probably the only house to sell at a profit in Detroit that year.
You're right though, you need to be almost heartless with these people, (not poor people, but crackheads and welfare cheats) otherwise, they'll wrap you around their fingers and use you up.