Why would lights plugged in to lamp holder outlet adapter be testing as live?

Question

We bought an old pendant light for our flat, with a two prong plug. Rather than rewiring it in to the existing outlet, I just bought one of those $2 lamp holder outlet adapter. To be on the safe side, I checked it with my contact volt tester, which lit up when it came within a few inches of the unit (not even in contact).

I plugged the pendant in to a standard wall fixture and all was fine (no charge on the casing, the tester only lights up with contact on the cable). What's more, when I plugged our bedside lamp in to the ceiling adaptor the same thing happened - a good 2-3 inches out the fluke lit up.

Is there something about those outlet adapters which may be causing the pendant and lamp to be live? Or perhaps the ceiling fixture is rated too high for the pendant and lamp?

Answer 1

I would advise checking the wiring of the switch. It sounds like it might be a case of the switch for the lamp is switching the neutral instead of hot. The result of this is that when the switch is off, there is no visible light because there is no return path for the electricity (broken by the switch), but there is still eletricity making it up to the fixture.

Answer 2

It is posible that when the house was wired the light fixture was not switched.The light was controlled with a pull chain.If a wall switch was added later they may wired the switch by breaking the hot wire inside the fixture mounting box.If that is the case you would have power in the box with the switch off.