Unresponsive and dismissive maintenance, anything I can do?

[Matt Gehrls]

Someday, I hope to be a landlord and that is why I'm on the site. Right now, I'm a tenant. Because I have been reading and seeing things from the other side I don't want to be a pain. However, my apartment is a dump. The toilet runs for minutes, the fix they gave me was turn this knob on top (really, really old toilet) but that doesn't work. The shower has terrible pressure and is never warm, and it's getting worse. They've told me, that's just how it is. Everytime we use the incredibly old gas stove, the knobs fall off and they are clearly not the knobs that were originally on the stove. It makes cooking difficult. They won't do anything unless it's actually broken.

They raised the rent on this building 50% last year and basically just painted and put new flooring down. Is it my fault for not doing my due diligence and figuring this stuff out before, or do you think they are just slumlords who don't care? And is there something I can do to get these things fixed?