said by MaynardKrebs:If it closes, flushing it might help his situation.
If it doesn't, the landlord replaces the faulty water heater.
The current water heater was installed by the previous landlord before the building was sold to the current owner. One good thing about the current owner is she is okay with cats. The previous owner was slightly better with repairs (installed the energy saver water heater) but had a no pets policy (hide the cat in the closet when the landlord comes). If the current landlord were to replace the water heater, we'd get some cheap energy hog. I was looking at water heaters at Sears and the operating costs on the energy guides varied. Some cost over $500 a year to operate (based on average utility rates and our area has higher than average utility rates) and some (like the GE GeoSpring) were cheap to operate. No matter who pays the cost of installing a new tank, it will ultimately be myself paying the costs of operate it (and trust me, my electric bills are NOT cheap).
As for pets, we are responsible pet owners (current cat is a neutered tomcat) but there are a lot of tenants that are irresponsible such as filthy litter boxes (and the cat does it's business elsewhere), keeping intact animals (male cats spraying/female cats multiplying), vicious dogs posing liability issues, etc.