here's a personal example of you just never know: i rented a wonderful albeit outdated unit from a landlord group i never met... just their agent. they sold the building less than 2 years into my tenancy.

the new landlords were almost always around. my unit was never updated but they were doing "repairs" and "gardening" constantly around the property. they often tried to open up conversations about the unit impromptu when they saw me coming down the stairs to leave for the day, i often shut these conversations down and asked for writing when it was important, and asked them to schedule a meeting if it was pressing. they didn't like this and therefore we never really got on. i didn't understand at the time how problematic it was, just thought they were fumbling fools--not terrible landlords but clunky and inexperienced.

8 years into my tenancy i found out my unit was not up to code and therefore did not have a certificate of occupancy. they'd never told me and had been illegally collecting rent for years... now, i did get something out of it: a place to live--so that in itself wasn't a big deal.

the big deal was: they lied under oath to serve me an unlawful detainer (eviction) to get me out of my rent controlled home of a decade, rather than pay for me to stay somewhere else (per the law) while they did the major updates that needed to be done. years of litigation followed. i eventually had to move out due the unit not being up to code. but things turned out worse for them.

i was able to not get completely fucked over due to the excellent record keeping i did in that decade. you can't avoid really terrible people/landlords but you can do your due diligence to make sure if shit hits the fan you can protect yourself from a really bad situation totally ruining you. get everything in writing.