Adventures in dubious construction, ctd

The other day the single outlet in my room, something I wired up with the help of my host brother when I first arrived, started sparking deep in the guts of the thing and partially melted the casing. I was unable to fix it myself, so with the help of a different host brother (the one with the medical issues some time back) we took it apart and found the switch had gone and wasn't making a proper connection. We fixed it by jamming a piece of stripped wire insulation inside to force the switch closed.

Jerry-rigged, I suppose, but it's still better than when I arrived, when there was no light switch, just a five-amp breaker hanging by a live wire. Of course the first thing I did when I arrived was shock the bejesus out of myself trying to turn on the lights, and if I wanted to turn anything else on I also had to have the lights going. This is the lap of luxury by comparison.

Here you can see an innovative way of attaching a the light fixture—if you don't have any fasteners, why not just use the extra live wire?

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Ryan Cooper

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