It's kind of a rare apartment that's any different than that. You shouldn't make the relationship adversarial. Most of the landlords I ever had were happy to cut me a check on the spot for any repairs I did. You might just call em up and ask em if that's ok. It is a hassle when a 20 minute fix-it takes days. Usually... little stuff like light switches... leaks.. BS like that... is nickel dime stuff... and 2 days to wait for the repair guy.
In Oregon, you can force the landlord to make repairs or repair the place at their expense under fairly narrow circumstances. But you really don't need the pissing match. I'd start with a polite
certified letter asking them to fix the problems. Offer to help. It's a good place to start. You can get nasty later... probably fairly shortly... but later.
If that doesn't work, then look at your landlord/tenant laws and see exactly how you can cause repairs to be done. It's probably possible, but you need to be very careful and follow the law exactly.
Theoretically they can't take revenge on you for suing them. In practice I wouldn't count on it.
Send them a nice certified letter... signature required. You can be nice. It'll probably nudge them a little without pissing them off.
If they really piss you off, flush a bag of concrete before you move
