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Mysterious Light Switches
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They are wired into the master computer for national polling. Up for 'yes'; down for 'no'.
Every time you hear a polling question and are feeling too lazy to call in, just throw the switch instead.
Maybe they are wired into mysterious lights. The ones in the hidden rooms, priest holes, creepy basements and safe rooms.
The ones in my house appear to be switches they didn't bother to remove when they remodeled the house. However switching one of them doesn't seam to work anything but still manages to flip the breaker once in a while. Maybe it goes to the neighbors house.
Will said "priest holes" again. ~snicker~
I have one in my current house that every now and then I flick just to see if anything happens. Nothing ever does that I'm aware of. However, in my last home (which was in north Texas) we had a mysterious garage door opener. We had a 3-car garage and for some reason 4 openers were installed. Every now and then I'd push it and nothing happened -- so I thought. One day, we had a big party and I casually mentioned it to the neighbor who lived across the street. She laughed and said she wondered if it went to her garage door because every now and then that door would open. We experimented and lo! Apparently the contractors had a bit too much to drink the day they installed the door openers.
In some cases I can tell what the switch was intended to connect to... I.E. intended lights outside my garage, a real light in my shower instead of a heat lamp system that turns on and off during showers, maybe a light that illuminates the whole great room instead of the spotlight on the fireplace.
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I conclude that basic circuit design is indeed rocket science for many homeowners; and that fishing wires through old walls is one of the easiest projects to abandon.
There is also the possibility that the original electrical contractor had an extra switch and just put it in the wall to screw with the homeowner's head. :)
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I once worked in an office where one room was converted (cheaply) into two rooms by adding a partition. The problem was that these two rooms had only one light switch, so the occupant of room B had to telephone the occupant of room A (me) if she wanted to turn the lights on.The amount of time that wasted over several years would have easily paid for an electrician to come and fit another switch.
The most mysterious light switch I ever came across was one that didn't exist. It was an ultra high-tech conference room which decided whether there was anyone in the room and automatically turned lights on or off.
More than once I was in this room for an evening meeting when it suddenly switched all the lights off leaving us in almost total darkness. We had evidently been sitting too still and it had decided that there was no-one in the room. The only cure was to stand up and wave our arms in the air so that the room would (somewhat reluctantly) turn the lights back on.
And, for Lisa's benefit, priest holes. And I'll throw in dado rails, pantries and sculleries.
That's called an "Occupation Sensor," Will. I love that term. It could be such a wonderful double entendre. I learned about them last year when I tried to have a sound-proof room built in my basement (my son plays a lot of musical instruments and sometimes my kitchen floor would vibrate when he was practicing). I joked with the contractor and asked if there was any kind of shock collar I could put on him that would gently zap him if he left the room without turning off the lights. That's when the guy suggested an occupation sensor to control the lights. It's wonderful but yes, he does complain that when he's composing or practicing a particular technique on the guitar, he has to remember to wave his arms around or the lights go out.
Now, if only we could use "occupation sensor," "priest holes" and "dado rolls" in one sentence...
Occupation sensor! Ooh, lots of places we could go with that one. I did hear a story about a parent who told his kids that the flickering light on the internal alarm sensors was Santa checking up on them to make sure they weren't being naughty. Cruel, very cruel.
Story 1: Stephen Wright used to tell the joke that he had a switch in his house that didn't do anything, and he would flip it occasionally. Then one day a woman called him from West Gernmany and said "stop that."
Story 2: As an undergrad I worked in a lab which was entered through an anteroom in front of a professor's office. His office light was often left on, and you could see it through the pebble glass window in his door. So we would turn off the light when we left, and if he was still there he'd yell "Hey!" and we'd turn it back on. So whenever we were giving someone a tour of the lab (TV games project) we would say "And this is the hey switch," then flip the switch. He didn't always yell, but when he did, our visitors were impressed.
Story 3: This is a real war story from my book Debugging: The 9 Indispensable Rules for Finding Even the Most Elusive Software and Hardware Problems. My wife complained that stepping on the vacuum cleaner switch turned on the dining room chandelier, but not the vacuum. It turned out that the vacuum was plugged into an outlet which used the wires between the pair of 3-way switches for the chandelier, and turning on the vacuum closed the connection. There was enough voltage to light the lights, but not to drive the vacuum motor.
Does anyone else have them?
Alien conspiracy or just home-builders messing with us?