I'm thoe Thor - NOT!

Electricity and I have never gotten along. I have a healthy fear of respect for it (I won't change a lightbulb without killing the fuse first). But what I really don't get is the vaguarities of light switches. My "apartment" was created by someone who literally threw up a couple of dividing walls in their basement and called it an apartment. There were no light switches in the new apartment (except for ones at the base of the staircase). Problem is... the owner of this house erected a wall close to the staircase that redefined the geography of the basement. This wall created, in effect, a hallway that has two doorways - one to my apartment, and one to the laundry room.

So, when you enter my apartment, if you haven't turned on the light at the base of the stairs, the apartment is completely dark. Worse, at bedtime, the only way to turn out the lights is to venture out into the common hallway, turn out the lights, and feel your way back to the bedroom in the dark.

Now obviously, such a situation becomes intolerable after, oh, about 3 seconds. So, I had the landlord install light switches inside the confines of the apartment. I have one switch mounted just inside my front door, and another switch mounted in the bedroom. But here's the problem. No wiring was laid in the process of installing these switches. They are "surface mount" switches... meaning, they are not attached to any wiring, and in fact, the switch can be pulled right off the wall.

For purposes of this discussion, consider the "light switches" to be like remote controls. Click "on" and the lights should turn on. Click "off" and... you get the idea. Sounds simple, right? So here's the rub. There are three light switches in the basement. Switches 1 and 2, located at the base of the staircase, control the Living Room and Bedroom lights in my "apartment". Switch 3 controls the hallway light, and this switch is located at the top of the second level staircase, immediately accessible to the people living on the main floor of the house, so they can see where they're going when they descend the staircase.

The "surface mount" switches are "smart" switches. They can be programmed to control either of two different circuits (A or B). When I first moved in, I had the landlord set the circuits to control the Living Room and Bedroom lights. It worked really well until about the third night, when I almost took a header down the steps getting into the basement. At that point, I realized I needed to be able to turn off the stairway light at the bottom of the staircase (not at the TOP - before finding my way to the bottom). The "remote control" switch seemed like a good bet, so I had one installed.

Remember what I said about A or B circuits? What the heck do you do when you add a C circuit? I programmed the new switch to use circuit "B". When I enter from outside, I turn on the lights at the top of the staircase, and when I get to the bottom, I turn off the lights. So far so good...

In the apartment, I quickly realized that my bedroom light switch (B) was also controlling the light in the outer hallway. I thought that was an acceptable sacrifice - wasting some energy in the hall during the relatively little time that my bedroom light is on. The problem started when the owner of the house had the audacity to make a trip to the laundry room while I was sleeping - and turned on the lightswitch. On came the bedroom light! And I almost hit the roof.

(I've got to go to work now - I'll finish this post later)