I'll be honest: I hate that I have so many rodent roommates. They don't even pay any rent ... although the population seems to fluctuate (and we seem to be at a high point now).

I lived in the city two years and had terrible maintenance issues at my apartment in Mount Vernon. I complained to the landlord about so many mice (living in the stove, no less), but nobody called back. Eventually (after many calls), I came home and found a couple packs of mouse traps. Thanks, guys. The issue wasn't that I couldn't catch mice (I got 11 in less than two months), it was that they infested the building. Ugh.

The other big issue was a problem with the heating unit in my bedroom that was not repaired for an entire year. Yeah.

Now I live in Ellicott City and -- surprise! -- fewer maintenance issues here by far. I guess it's harder to be a slum landlord in Howard County and still get tenants.

Jamie:

Filing a lawsuit is easy and doesn't require representation. You should do a post on that and people that get stuck with a slumlord can file away.

I'm not going to defend the practices of the true slumlords but I will warn against painting all with that too wide brush.

Conditions within the property like mechanical equipment are absolutely the domain of the property owner to keep up or to replace. But there are other factors outside the LL's control (often physically outside) to consider and acknowledge such as well.

You know those $4500 tax credits available to owners that do energy efficiency improvements? Want to take a wild guess how much of that money is available to the small time land lord?

I'm anxious to keep my rental property in top shape because 1) I want tenants to be happy and stick around and 2) the minute you let a house go, the resale value will plummet. It isn't easy financially with the age of homes and their systems in Baltimore, and as Mr. Rational points out, LLs get no energy tax credits for improvements, but also do not qualify for the homesteaders' break on property taxes, or some of the other renovation credits reserved for owner occupied homes or for major rehabs often out of reach for small LLs. They can't usually get a home equity line, either, as I found when I installed central AC. So bargain basement rents may leave little room for manoevre and can lead to a downward spiral. On the tenant side, also, I've seen tenants (not mine, but when house shopping in Charles Village) who had dog deposits in the living room floor and who threw empty beer cans out the back porch into a huge heap.

That said, there's no excuse for landlords not taking responsibility for basic maintenance and pest control. There are plenty of reliable and reasonably priced repair people and other necessary services available in Baltimore if you do your homework and seek out those with good recommendations.