Admiral Hack:
..you should have a log of everything you fixed or replaced over the years, and Hand them to the owner next time you see them!
I long ago lost track of stuff that I'd fixed...built-in drawers that were falling apart, almost all of the kitchen cabinets had bottoms that were sagging (that's what happens when you use 1/4" wood paneling for the bottom shelf and then someone stores plates or canned goods in it or something like that)...replaced the screens on the front and back storm doors...
Last time I had a major fix done (replaced the valves on the tub faucet because it was leaking so much water that it was probably losing 5 gal/day in water going straight down the drain), I just put the receipt in the envelope for my rent payment, with a check for the difference between what I paid for the repair and what I owed for the rent. Never heard a word back about it.
While I think the owners or managers might take exception to something like that being done unilaterally, I also don't do it often. And I've been there for twenty years, and with the exception of a few months back in 2008, I've paid my rent in full and on time pretty much every month, and the months that I don't get it in on time, I don't have to be prompted to include the late fee. So they cut me a lot of slack. At this point, I could probably get a cat or dog and they wouldn't care much (especially since they're pretty much guaranteed to be renovating the whole apartment when I finally move out, anyway...when I moved in, the then-owners had been living in that particular unit for a few years, before they bought a house. They'd renovated all of the other units, leaving theirs until last...and then, when they moved out and were planning to renovate it, someone needed an apartment right away and moved in before they could do any serious renovations. When she moved out, they were going to renovate...but I needed a place right away, so there was never time to do the renovations...so I started at least one serious renovation behind everyone else in the fourplex. And all of the other units have been renovated at least once since I moved in, some of them twice. Granted, the renovations have mostly been small, but I know the unit next to mine got rid of the linoleum bathroom floor and had tile put in, so some of them have been significant, and I think the one two doors down from me had to get new carpet after the last occupant moved out, but I'm not positive...)
But me moving out would mean they'd have to dump a bunch of money into fixing the apartment up so they could rent it out...even though they'd be making more money on it because they could raise the rent (I think I'm also significantly cheaper rent than the other units, because of the disparity in overall condition...) Since I've shown no inclination to relocate, and I'm still paying rent on the regular and they never get complaints about me being too loud, or the police having to come check up on me, or anything like that, they've kind of been turning a blind eye to my tendency to ignore some aspects of my rental agreement (like not having stuff around the property...I have a stack of projects against the back wall of my apartment, but I also keep my snowblower there, and since they don't have to worry about snow removal as a result, they only point it out to me maybe once every three years or so..)