Having grown up in one of these myself in ex-Soviet country, I hate them with passion. The quality of utilities is awful: sewage pipes get clogged all the time and whole buildings smell like piss more often than not, thermal insulation was practically non-existent and tried to be compensated by extensive heating that had poor circulation and no way to be adjusted flat-by-flat basis, so if you live in bottom floors you would have to open windows in the middle of winter, and if you live in the upper floors, you have to sleep with your clothes on and few layers of blankets. Sound isolation was also so poor, you didn't even need to turn on TV or radio, because you could hear neighbor's clearly. The whole blocks of the same, bleak, monotonous houses are also very depressive place to live in.
Currently most of the remaining Khrushchyovkas are getting renovated (something like this: http://www.manostatyba.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/mazei...), but I shudder even to the idea living in any of them again.
Having grown up in one of these myself, never had a problem with utilities. Some problems with heating - yes. I don't remember piss smell - I remember smell of concrete and fresh paint, but never smell of piss.
I guess it depends on where exactly you lived and what neighbors you had.
Yes, there has been a long discussion on what to do with these buildings. Some experts wanted to raze them to the ground and build new ones, but the easier (temporary) solution of renovation was chosen, because it would require too much of government funds and there are also law issues as there isn't many legal means to move stubborn flat owners from their property if they don't do want to and as mostly elders live in these places now (many of them even since it was built), this is a big issue.
It's a natural reaction, avoid the hugh and costly efforts. But, at least in France, the impact of these buildings, in none wealthy [1] places, led to very deep social problems. Racism, poverty, insalubrity..
Destroying them seems the most effective solution as of now. It changes people living there mindset, it removes the memories of the issues attached to the architecture.
for the curious, that theory is quite possible, I don't have data on who was displaced by the "rework". That said the population didn't change much, still cosmopolitan, 3rd gen of immigrants from Africa (north or west).
