Landlords despise tenant protection laws. They’d rather just treat the place as an investment than deal with tenants that have rights.
Our previous landlord was an absolute nutjob (we found out later he'd been doing all sorts of strange/illegal things and had a ridiculously high tenant turnover; shame since it was a nice unit).
Eventually, his wife came on one of the inspections and decided we weren't fit to grace her property, so we were given 120 days to vacate. This is the minimum in Victoria for "without cause" eviction.
While incredibly stressful (and I still don't think the laws are strict enough; "without cause" eviction should be as difficult as "without cause" firing), it was long enough to find another suitable property to move to. I couldn't imagine how terrible it would be to only be given, say, a week's notice until we were homeless.
Apartment which we applied to but didn't rent:
- owner insisted that we follow her rules about living habits (e.g. get up/sleep times) or we wouldn't be allowed to rent (this was a large building of 20+ apartments)
- subtle hints during our tour that she profiled everyone and only rented to those people she considered to be "responsible" people
- threw a tantrum at us and returned our rental application when we asked for a few days to sort out the contract signing and then proceeded to lecture us on responsibility
- heating was controlled by her for the entire building (imagine what it would be like to live there)
Apartment 1:
- mouse/rat infestation which the landlord addressed by saying they put up traps instead of calling an exterminator
- rampant spider infestation which landlord refused to do anything about (seriously, I've never seen so many different colored spiders)
- landlord started arguing with us at our door when we threatened to report them to the city for above
- our downstairs neighbor's shower stopped working and still wasn't fixed by the time we moved out
Apartment 2:
- mold growing in the bathroom and sharp splinters coming out of what must have been 50 year old hardwood floors, no fix from landlord so we taped the floor where there were nails/splinters
- only 1 burner worked on the stove (no fix from landlord)
- power to the entire building would flip on and off at least once a month
You couldn't get out without paying for the rest of the lease. That's what made it so much worse than what you're describing. I would have gladly been evicted from these hellholes.
It ended up being the case that the corporate landlords in the area were actually much better behaved than the local ones.