Renting is important to have available but it absolutely does not need to be at the level its at. The amount of people paying for someone else’s investment while wishing they could own something of their own is crazy and it’s insane that we’ve normalized that. And all the while they’re just hoping nothing goes wrong because it seems like even the “good” landlords are hit-or-miss when it comes to getting them to do literally anything. Mine’s usually pretty good but right now there’s a fucking hole in the foundation and getting them to properly address it is a hurdle I shouldn’t have to go through. In order for these buildings to be profitable the tenants need to not only pay for those issues you mentioned but now they’re also paying for someone else’s salary AND in the end that person gets to sell the building and keep all that money, too.

The reason the housing market is fucked in the US and Canada is becauss there are very few rent controls and a lot of the power sides with the landlords. In Montréal you have to be worried about going taking them to court because future landlords can just look up if you’ve ever done anything and deny you a place to live even if the problem was your current landlord is dogshit. Oh, and there’s a new law that’s around landlords being able to use necessary renovations as excuses to raise your rent! They have all the power and it doesn’t matter if they’re big or small, it’s a “business” that attracts the kind of people who don’t mind making easy money off of making you pay for their stuff.

Your landlord(probably) isn’t going to let you hit it because you’re glazing them on Lemmy. Stand up for yourself and others, even if you got lucky with a landlord who is considered good because they don’t throw a hissy fit when you ask them to do their fucking job.