...and a new light.
But what I really want to tell you about is this: I might've found something even scarier than the basement--the wiring in this house. The breaker switches are all neatly labeled and the breaker box is only 4 years old. (Long story short, when I moved in and installed my washer and dryer there was no main electrical shutoff to the house and the utility company refused to turn on the power to the house until I had a new breaker box and main shutoff installed.) The wiring, however, dates from the 1960s or so. I don't have any knob and tube, but the guy who put in the new breaker box said it would be a good idea to update my wiring. Note that he said this four years ago... Anyhow, each room is on its own circuit, and the outlets in each room are on a separate circuit. Or so I thought. But when I went down there Monday night to flip the breaker for the foyer, I didn't see a one labeled "foyer". Uh-oh. After several trips up and down the basement steps and switching three or four other breakers (including one not labeled which evidently doesn't control anything) I finally flipped the one labeled "dining room". When I came upstairs, half the house was dark. Uh-oh. Turns out that one little breaker controls the dining room ceiling fixture, the front parlor ceiling fixture, the front parlor outlets, the second parlor ceiling fixture, the foyer light, the foyer outlet, the front porch light and the front porch outlet. Yikes. Does that seem like an awful lot of stuff on one little breaker??