As an electrician, There are things that I definitely don't want to see. These are some photos that I took just this week.

I was replacing a dimmer when I found this one. The house has aluminum wiring. Aluminum just does not hold up to heat and current loads like copper. Thankfully aluminum was only acceptable for about 10 years between the '60s and '70s.

This is something we run into quite often. These photos were taken in the basement of an establishment in an old section of town. Note all the dangling and unsecured wires and cords.

These wires go back to the main panel. We'll have to fix this rat's nest at some point.

More dangling wires.

The coil of yellow wire at the left will be used to eliminate some of this eyesore.

No idea what this thing is other than some sort of compressor.

Open 4/0 box with taped splices.

This knife switch, which is being fed by the 4/0 in the last picture, is completely exposed on the basement wall. Note the red light on the end of my tweeter. This circuit is hot.

Left of this mass of copper pipes and water heater is an old staircase. I need to access the area to pull some wires down.

This will be difficult. We may have to get a skinny guy to get in there.

While we don't run into nightmares like this every day, they are not that uncommon. Well, maybe not the crispy aluminum wires. But we do see them along and along.

If you decide to do your own wiring, at least run everything down a single chase and branch off from there. It will make life easier for anyone who may come behind you doing work.