As someone who doesn't own a home, I rent my place from a landlord. As for landlords, he could be worse, but he could also be much better. He does fix things, but it takes some badgering to get him to do it. I am not one of those people who feels confident enough to argue with the landlord about basically anything. I guess it's because I'm kind of conflict-avoidant, but also because I feel like he could negatively impact my life. After all, I sleep and eat and bathe in the building that he owns! He could stop paying the mortgage, let the house get foreclosed, and force us to find somewhere else to live! He's probably not going to do that, but he could! He could also just become even more negligent than he already is. He never has anyone clean the hallway and foyer, and he could keep letting dirt, dust, and grime pile up there because none of the tenants are willing to clean it up.
The truth is, I shouldn't be so scared to confront my landlord about what's wrong with the house. Luckily, I have three awesome roommates who are more than willing to text him incessantly about any issue that we have. The sliding glass door on my shower has become a huge issue over the past couple of months. It is curved in a very unusual shape, and no matter how many times someone comes to fix it, or how careful we are, it keeps coming off the hinges. At first, our landlord told my roommate Ally, who shares the bathroom with me, and me that we should just put up a shower curtain where the glass door used to be and be done with it. Ally wasn't okay with that solution, as she shouldn't be! I don't understand why he would want us to have a detached glass door in our house for the remainder of our lease. That is totally dangerous. Not to mention, a shower without a sliding door lowers the apartment's value to tenants. Ally has followed up with him every time the shower door has fallen off, and she will continue to do so until the lease is up. I appreciate her for that, because I am afraid of getting in trouble for breaking things. In her mind, everything is his fault, and nothing is our fault.
In the eyes of the law, tenants in NYC have far more rights than landlords, so we tenants can really get away with a lot without getting evicted. We've never done anything eviction-worthy: we pay our rent on time every month! Our biggest crime is being annoying, which tenants need to do when their landlord is lazy and needs 6 reminders before they actually fix things.
In other places, landlords have much more power than tenants, and they can get rid of an unwanted tenant pretty easily, no matter how unfair their reasoning is.