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Finally traced a phantom voltage back to a chewed neutral in the attic, took me 9 hours over 3 visits
Had a customer in Reno call me about lights flickering in her hallway. Simple dimmer swap, right? I told her I would be in and out in an hour. First visit I swapped the dimmer, tested everything, looked fine, charged her $85 and left. She called back two days later saying it was worse. Second visit I put my meter on the panel and got 118 volts on one leg and 121 on the other, which is close enough that most guys would shrug it off. I sat in her crawlspace for two hours checking every junction box and found nothing, so I ate the second trip and told her I would come back with a helper. Third visit we traced the circuit room by room and finally found a chewed up neutral wire in the attic where a rat had been living. The bare copper was touching a joist, so the voltage was back feeding through the ground. Fixed it with a junction box and a new run of 12-2, total time in the house was around 9 hours across all three trips. She tipped me $40 and gave me a plate of tamales, which honestly made up for the two unpaid visits. Any of you ever chase a ghost like that and feel dumb when the answer turns out to be a rodent?
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