Iminaquagmire
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The other night my girlfriend and I were trying to find a switched outlet in the bedroom of her new apartment, and upon being unsuccessful, I decided to take the cover off and have a looksee. I knew there was no point in having a switch if it wasn't going to control something. When I took the switch out, I was amazed to see this:
I don't know how they ever thought this was the right way, but for obvious reasons I don't like it. I don't know where the neutral goes and on top of that, I tested the feed and know it has power.
After that I moved onto the switch in the kitchen and found more of the same:
This switch appears to have had a little arc blast damage (hard to see in picture) and has no ground. It however does control the ceiling fan.
Disgusted I checked the living room switch and found this:
It doesn't do anything as far as I can tell and I'm not sure what the two-way is doing in there with the red traveler.
****
If there were wires coming in and going out, I could see an inept person just hooking up a new switch wrong. But this is just totally wrong. Short of rewiring the entire apartment and probably the entire building, I see no way to bring this up to code.
I have not talked to the maintenance person, but I don't think they would be very receptive to that. My thing is that I think she and everybody else has the right not to die in a fire caused by their faulty wiring. They have the obligation to not let that happen. If it came down to it, how would one see that this gets fixed if the building owner doesn't see the need? Go to the city and inform them of the need to send an inspector out there?
I don't know how they ever thought this was the right way, but for obvious reasons I don't like it. I don't know where the neutral goes and on top of that, I tested the feed and know it has power.
After that I moved onto the switch in the kitchen and found more of the same:
This switch appears to have had a little arc blast damage (hard to see in picture) and has no ground. It however does control the ceiling fan.
Disgusted I checked the living room switch and found this:
It doesn't do anything as far as I can tell and I'm not sure what the two-way is doing in there with the red traveler.
****
If there were wires coming in and going out, I could see an inept person just hooking up a new switch wrong. But this is just totally wrong. Short of rewiring the entire apartment and probably the entire building, I see no way to bring this up to code.
I have not talked to the maintenance person, but I don't think they would be very receptive to that. My thing is that I think she and everybody else has the right not to die in a fire caused by their faulty wiring. They have the obligation to not let that happen. If it came down to it, how would one see that this gets fixed if the building owner doesn't see the need? Go to the city and inform them of the need to send an inspector out there?
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