Like most young people, I rented for most of the first 23years of my adult life. While I rented, I saved money that would likely have gone towards paying for a house, put it in a combination of 401(k)s and investments accounts (I guess one benefit of having parents that lived through the Great Depression is they were always stressing saving, my grandfather was one of those individuals that lost everything).

Then in the 1990s, I had enough to buy a house. I continued to save as much as possible, since I was born with a heart condition and knew my career would be abbreviated.

After I retired and later moved to California, I began putting half of my retirement income into rental housing, renting to people who like me in my early life could not afford to buy a home.

I understand the situation your daughter is in. I frequently counsel people to consider not only the rental unit but the landlord. We background check you; they should do the same. Bad landlords have "track" records, just like bad "tenants".

We are the opposite situation as your daughter, we get angry when tenants don't tell us when there is a problem. Recently, we spent thousands of dollars replacing damaged floors from a persistent slow leak, that had we been told earlier we would have fixed it and saved thousands and made the place better. The tenant said it didn't bother them, so they did not say anything...

On another occasion, we had termites. Under the rental agreement, we have a right to ask tenants to vacate the home, while we "tent" it. We did the same thing with our home. They got upset because the termites weren't bothering them, and they had to find a place to live for three days. Whether you own or rent, a home should be cared for the same way.

I would say around 20% of our tenants could afford their own places perhaps as many as 40% if they were willing to drop down to a less expensive home, but they like the nicer home and having us maintain it (this latter group is mostly seniors and wealthy individuals for whom money is less an issue. We ask people why they are renting as part of our background check.

For this older or higher income group, the response is they don't want to hassle with maintaining a place anymore. Money for this group is less important than convenience.

We even have one landlord that pays us a monthly fee to maintain his home... he is a doctor and simply doesn't want to bother and so tells us to maintain his home like we do his rental properties).

Other landlords hire us to not only rent their property but process their mail. We have three owners, that have decided to live overseas for a few years and are renting their homes while they are gone. The pay us and extra fee to collect their mail, go through it, process the bills and throw away the junk. They want the home maintained in the same condition they left it.

So, I am sorry about your daughter's experience, and she has a right to cancel her lease in most states if a landlord does not respond in a timely manner. Most states have a habitability requirement, that allows tenants to cancel without penalty if landlords don't respond to repairs that represent safety issues.

I do want to say, broken pipes can be a real problem, we had one multifamily unit where the pipes kept clogging and after the second time they broke. In some places, the hard water causes pipes to develop mineral blockages, it was clear we had to re pipe the building. Every tenant was told that would have to vacate the building for two weeks (since the building would have no water). During those two weeks, they would owe no rent, or they could cancel without penalty. We also require renter's insurance which pays for up to one week of offsite housing if a tenant has to vacate for repairs. Lastly, we arranged a favorable weekly rental rate at a local hotel. So, between the "insurance", rent rebate, and rent discount, most tenants would not be out "cash", just the inconvenience that goes with major repairs at one's home (whether you own or rent). While there was some grumbling over the experience, not a single tenant cancelled their lease, and now most are so much happier since for now, no more clogging pipes.

To your final comment. We talk to renters daily, often multiple times a day. That is our business. I understand exactly what your daughter is experiencing and would recommend she move out and find a better place.

But rent controls would make that harder. And rent controls drive away "good landlords" and attract those that want to make a buck on the cheap.