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In my 20's and early 30's I lived in really bad tenements in Worcester. I was in the middle of the highest crime neighborhood in the city but we were all young and big and fearless. We made the decision to live in these places to save money. What I found was if you have a "gooddeal" on a pace, the landlord isnot going to do anything to repair etc. We pretty mucgh did without but for things like the heater ,I would tell the landlord , give a few days to fix, then I would call in a repair guy then deduct it from the rent. There was always an argument but in the end that seemed to be what worked best. In the final month I simply told the landlord to keep the security deposit instead of paying rent.
The overall theme is some landlords just want to collect rent. All problems are your. But those same pesonalities were also so detached they didn't want to look for a new tenent. Missing just a momths rent or them while the place was empty was more than all the foolishness about basic repairs. They also kow that if they go below certain requirements , the health department will give them mandated expensive repairs and often the tenants pay no rent until the minimum standards are met.
We did have one guy who kept pushing and pushing ad eventually he started stating he would keep our security depost and raise the rent. We called the health department who found thousands in required improvements and the guy had to fix them to rent out again. We didn't stay after the big riff but all said and done, the landlord caused himself thousands in expenses when a few hundred would have made the place liveable for us.
Now this is all slum apartment, slum landlord related. If your place is nicer and depending on the deal you have , its your decision to push the landlord or not. In the better places with high rent , I always found the landloard or often someone who managed the property for them would be all over any complaints and especially basic stuff like heat or anything where someone could get hurt (stairs) were fixed immediately.
BYW , get the stove looked at by the gas company when there is a smell of gas. They will respond to a complaint of gas mell and will track down the causae. They don't want whole buildings blowing up. They will likely tag the old stove as NG and then the landlord will have to fix or replace it.
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