Had the electrician over today to assess the basement and possibly get it up to par.

Yeah...riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

He went down then and almost went running away crying. It was THAT bad. What we thought would be a quick repair and reconnection of wires turned into yet another "OH MY GAWD WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!" and more importantly... "where does THAT wire go?!". There were other statements such as "What is...ok..um...this is bad. You don't want to look back here and don't touch that hanging wire". Sighs of frustration and confusion were at every 3 feet of movement.

There were many sobering moments and as the dollar amount on the estimate soared to $4000 I felt like crying. Thankfully, the guy was hella nice and hooked us up as well as gave us options. Basically, we have to rip out all the drywall in the basement so everything is exposed and then call him to come back and completely rewire. The $4000 price tag is now considerably less.

I can breath a bit easier now but what this means is that it will be even longer before I can even think of putting in the new carpet or even trying to habitate that part of the house.