Plug In

Okay, so the painting thing was a total disaster.

But before I can do anything about the paint, what I really have to attend is the electrical problem, which I should have taken care before painting anyway.

I know, this may not seem a little bit like calling a veterinarian when your sink is stopped up, but if you knew about the electrical situation here you’d know this makes more sense than calling, for example, a painter. Or a decorator.

The thing is, my apartment is in a building that was built in 1924. And the wiring hasn’t been updated since---or, no, that’s an exaggeration. And it’s worse than that. The wiring has been updated, several times, by several different people, each apparently less competent than the last. There are wires encased in metal tubes running along the baseboards, not neatly buried in the wall the way a person would like. There are boxes sticking out for the outlets, like this:



There are odd wires stapled to the wall that end in a plug dangling from an outlet, like this:



What is this? It’s like the Electricity to Nowhere. And with all this, there aren’t very many outlets, so when I got the Broadband internet hooked up, the front hall area looked like this.



So I called the electrician and now he’s coming tomorrow, at last.