Walked into a rental unit this morning where the tenant mentioned the shower light was acting possessive—flickering on and off whenever it felt like it. I pulled the trim down expecting a loose connection, but what I found was a genuine masterpiece of bad decisions. Instead of proper wiring, someone had rigged the fixture using a brittle, yellowed lamp cord meant for a bedside table, spliced together with nothing but dried-out duct tape. It was sitting right there in the ceiling, unprotected and ungrounded, hovering directly above where someone stands soaking wet every single day.

The tape had lost its stick years ago, leaving bare copper exposed just inches from the metal housing. When I showed the landlord the charred insulation, he didn’t even flinch. He just shrugged, looked me dead in the eye, and dropped the line that makes every electrician’s blood pressure spike: “Well, it’s been fine for years.” That’s the terrifying logic of the ‘Landlord Special’—everything is technically working perfectly right up until the moment the fire trucks show up.

I tore the whole mess out before I even went to the truck for supplies because there was no way I was leaving that death trap energized for another minute. We ran proper Romex, installed a wet-rated can, and actually grounded the thing so the tenant doesn’t get a shock with their shampoo. If you start seeing duct tape where there should be wire nuts, or lamp cords disappearing into your drywall, don’t let anyone tell you it’s normal just because it hasn’t failed yet.

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