That being said, The law states that the owner/landlord is required to do repair on the building. A building without gas and with structural damage is the responsibility of the landlord to repair. If he is unable to repair the damage himself, he should hire someone to repair building for his tenants.
She not only had the right to with hold the rent, she had a responsibility to do so in order to force the landlord to remedy the situation. If the landlord can afford a lawyer for several years of litigation, he could afford to repair the building and maintain adequate facilities for the rent he agreed upon.
And I maintain, that her withholding of the rent was a forced continuation of a rental agreement that likely would not have been renewed had her withholding action not been in force. So in my mind, her rent may have been reasonable in 1984, but nowhere near reasonable in 2012. She had no right to expect to continue to pay that price. She evidently talked to a smart lawyer who told her what to do.