Jim Lane

Thought you would like to see the things that I have to deal with, the lady of this apartment unit (translated by one of her dirty boogery dripping nose barefoot kids) tells me that whenever she turns on the light switch that she feels a little tickle and if she is has her shoes off her feet zizzles, her little dirty boogery dripping nose barefoot kids also tell me that they also feel zizzley when they touch the switch.

Her fiancé, nice way of saying donor was all proud because he replaced the switch last year.





Of course I caught this immediately.

This is an example of a typical Home Depot learned wiring job.

I guess there is a mentality that if there is a screw, you got to hook somethin to it.

BTW
If you don't see the problem, the LINE from the left switch has a jumper wire connected to the Ground screw on the right switch,
since they were installed in an old Bakelite box, the switches were both insulated.

BUT the heads of the screws that hold on the switch plate are electrically HOT so here sweaty hands would get a zizzle.

Her little dirty grungy dripping nose barefoot kids could have been easily electrocuted if the ground would have been damp,

They were really lucky.

I show this picture at Home Depot hoping it might just save someones life.

I believe this is Gods way of draining society's dirty gene pool.

Jim

chaikwa

I shared this on a Facebook Fire Inspectors page. Hope you don't mind Jim. Let me know if you do and I'll remove it.

Jim Lane

No problem,
Please be my guest.
Jim

railroaderone

Some people should not be allowed to have electricity in there house much less work on it

Chrisreyn

^speechless^

Lary Ellis (Top)

I admire anyone with the gumption to try and fix things on their own BUT they at least have to make an attempt to gain a little knowledge on the subject matter they are dealing with FIRST.

Wow....so fortunate one of those babies didn't get killed...

SIXSLUG

Nice job!

I get folks trying to do my job all the time to save money, then I come in to fix it at twice to thrice the cost.

Those kids are lucky they didn't get torched by that mess....

CarlJensen

When I was still working we called it a stupid tax. Usually double normal fee for repair...

NE frmhnd

I looked and looked and thought the jumper may have been the problem but didn't notice it was hooked to a ground screw.

I have a tendency to hook up the new switch like the old one. Has a better chance of being hooked right that way.
My dad has people have someone else do the jobs he bids on for half the price he bids when he won't budge on his, then goes back in and charges twice what the bid was when he fixes it. Word gets around and he gets fewer of those every year.

gorms

Jeesh the least he could have done is wrapped the wire the right way around the screw. I hate that!

Seriously though, you should see some of the crap I see in the city I work out of (Brockton). Usually the non-englsh speaking/illegal variety, not always though, but I have turned on the light, saw the rat's nest, and turned around and walked out. Problem is once I touch any of it we own it....if they pay the bill.
We used to do a lot of clean up/violation fixes with multi-families and rentals, almost always filled with childern and I couldn't believe some of the stuff I've seen in plain sight of where the kids played. Panel covers missing in a kitchen, extension cord wiring with splices on the floor, plugs hanging out of the wall etc etc. Amazing.

BigIron70

I don't know why they went to plastic outlet boxes other then cost, this would have been a dead short and tripped the breaker if it was a metal box. That's if they had a ground on the box.

NE frmhnd

My aunt and cousin moved into a duplex. She was reading one night and smelled something hot, went outside and called fire dep't. They came and found the outlet, the bare wire had been wrapped in masking tape.
They moved out the next day.

Scotty

At five years of age I quickly determined that placing a pair of tweezers into an electrical outlet makes for a jolt, bounce off the opposite wall, blown breaker, solder splatter on new pants from tweezers and laughs from my brother. Nothing's been the same since. Ask Lary.

Lary Ellis (Top)

The only sad part of this story was the fact that I was unable to get you to do it again......Growing up with my own younger crash test dummy was a real hoot

SIXSLUG

I know what you mean about how you touch it and it becomes your baby...My insurance would have gone up 8 grand a year if I didn't agree to stop doing re-sides. Apparently I was responsible for the entire structure's integrity by removing and rehanging the siding. 'Murica!