Landlord Responsibility re: Health

[Jason Merchey]

Was just watching a pretty moving show on Dateline about the poor sections of New York . The NY Housing Authority has 400,000 people to deal with, and that is in addition to private landlords. In this episode, two girls were featured who had asthma, and were living in some pretty terrible conditions, eg., mold. The problem with these tenants was obviously a sluggish bureaucracy that doesn't have enough manpower, will, or funds to make the living situations for tenants right. And tenants on average pay 30% of the rent.
So I guess my question is, This is an issue that landlords have to deal with. Are there times when you do a cost benefit analysis of a situation and figure, well, I probably won't get caught if I leave x or y, or the tenant isn't very responsible as far as I am concerned, so why should I spend my precious cash flow on them? How about lead? What about having a place that has 0 insulation in the attic? Some decisions I imagine are difficult because no housing authority is the wiser, and the tenant is kind of marginal or accustomed to poverty, and so it would be tempting to kind of turn a blind eye, and look out for one's own bottom line (or even, one's investment, or even, one's family). Other decisions are more cut and dried because you know you would be running afoul of the law, or incurring major liability, if you didn't act, and so you bite the bullet and act. There are a lot of moral aspects to the landlording life, and it is such an important thing because we have such an impact on people's lives. what are your thoughts on this interesting topic?