I felt the same as you, but not all landlords are the same, especially if your building has partial other owners. I moved into a "new" building in part because in my last place (which I loved and lived in for 3+ years) I didn't have laundry for 5+ months when things flooded last year, and forget the smell of living in a beautiful, but old, historical walkup. It's definitely a maintenance issue that I couldn't control. In my dreams, I'd love to buy a full brownstone or other building and make sure none of that ever happened, but its hard to control the just shitty factors that make life miserable without owning in some buildings.