Should a tenant have to work for their landlord?

Tweet

My family and I recently moved into a new apartment. It is not what you would call a great apartment. It is something of a slum. It isn't to bad, it's clean and in a fairly safe neighborhood. But it definitely is not without it's problems. We live in an apartment complex. Our bathroom toilet is not fastened down tight and wobbles. We have cracked windows, that were like that when we moved in. The kitchen ceiling leaks in a small spot when it rains; just to give a few examples of what I mean. So yeah, it is something of a slum. Those slight problems don't really bother us that much. We only moved into here because the rent is cheap which allows us to save up money faster toward a down payment to buy a house. There is a rent to own program here that doesn't care about your credit rating and in which we only need 4% down to buy a house. The only requirement after making the down payment is to keep your monthly payments up. What we do have a problem with is our landlord. During a discussion with the landlord my husband made the mistake of telling him (our landlord) that he (my husband) was good at fixing things and was experienced in maintenance, building construction/ remodel and repair. Since that time, every time a tenant or tenants need something fixed, the landlord calls us or comes over and practically demands that my husband go and fix whatever it is. Our landlord does not pay my husband for these chores, nor does he give us a reduction in our rent. In fact, he does not compensate my husband in any way for the work. After a few times my husband got sick of this and so he starting telling the landlord, "NO!" Well this did not please the landlord at all and he got upset and was very rude about it. My husband explained to the landlord that he works at his paying job 6 days a week and 12 hours a day for at least half the week, therefore he doesn't really have time to take on extra work for him, especially when he is not being compensated for said work. The landlord did not like that either and left in a huff. Well, the next thing we knew, our wonderful landlord had told every other tenant in the building that if they needed something fixed that they were to come knock on our door and tell my husband to fix it because it was my husband's job to do so! Now, at least every other day we have one of our neighbors knocking on our door begging to have this fixed or that fixed. We would move out, but we just got settled in here and there are not many places for rent in the area where we live so it would take a while to find another apartment anyway. Plus, as I already mentioned, we were only planning on being in this apartment on a short term basis to begin with since we are saving to buy a house. What is your thoughts on this? What would you do in this situation?