I've concluded that the person who did electricity in my apartment is a doofus. All the switches in the kitchen are installed upside down. When the lights are off, the little knobs are in the up position. I remember the first time I tried to get a drink of water in the middle of the night it took me a while to turn on the lights because I was so used to looking for a switch to flip up. I think I eventually gave up and just opened the refrigerator door for light (because that was easier) but I'm not too sure because I was half-asleep. Also, when I do manage to turn on the lights, the word "NO" appears above the knob. Every time I look at the switch, it's like there's someone telling me to turn the lights off.

Then there's the washroom. There are no outlets there. I understand that this may have been a matter of building code years ago, but there are no outlets near the washroom either. I have to go into one of the bedrooms to shave and grope around my face to figure whether I've done an ok job.

Lastly, there's the living room. This one actually perplexed me for a while. There are two switches. Since there is no ceiling lighting, I assumed they both controlled switched outlets. I found the outlet for the first switch quite easily. The switch near the door controlled the outlets by the door. That it was upside down--like the kitchen switches--still irked me, but at least it was functional. Also, it would have been nice if only one of the two outlets at that plate were controlled by the switch, but that's nothing to really complain about. The other switch was a little harder to figure out. All the bedroom switches are oriented correctly but since this second switch was near the hallway, I wasn't sure whether it was oriented correctly or not. I tried all the remaining outlets in the living room with the switch in both positions but still nothing worked. I had decided that the electrician had chosen not to use this switch after all. I held to this conclusion for several days. But then one day, while a boring Simpsons rerun was on tv, I decided to experiment a little more. Eventually I figured out that it was intended to be a two-way switch with the same outlet as the switch near the front door. Except there was one flaw with the system. Instead of using an XOR gate between the two switches, the electrician opted for an AND gate. In other words, the light won't go on unless both switches are activated. But since they're installed upside down, to the casual observer, the light goes on when both switches are flipped off. Go figure. I pointed this out to a friend and he suggested I unscrew everything and mount the switches the correct way. I've decided it's just much easier to bitch about it instead.