hidden power

I was in the kitchen straightening the curtains by the kitchen table when I saw this outlet (the top one).

Why is that surprising?

About 7 or 8 years ago I was miffed that the house didn’t come with an outlet on that wall. I bought a box, an outlet, and some wiring and tapped power from the outlet in the storage room on the opposite side of the wall. I installed the outlet in the picture (bottom). I could then plug in a laptop to read the news over morning breakfast. This is also a convenient place for a CO detector. Gotta be safe.

So today, while straightening the curtains, I saw the top outlet. “Floyd,” I said, “has this always been here?”

After more than 10 years of living here, no one knew there was an outlet there. We had a good laugh.

rat’s nest comm box

In investigating the crawl space under the house, F and I stopped to talk about the rat’s nest of wires and disused electrical junk that is (or was) our communications box.  Is this not the sloppiest bit of work you’ve seen?

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