Question: A 3-wire socket (hot, neutral, ground) in my bathroom has stopped working due to a bad neutral wire. Can I safely disconnect the bad neutral wire completely, and move the ground wire to the neutral connector to get the socket working again? I have verified that there are 0.0 volts between ground and a nearby (working) neutral wire.
Background: I believe this failure can be traced to the installation of a new deck in the back of the house a couple of years ago, when the workers broke several cables between floors when they were pulling out beams from the old deck. The contractor brought in an electrician to fix the obvious failures, but I didn't notice that this bathroom socket (which is the last of a daisy chain of outlets) apparently ended up with a loose or broken neutral wire which causes intermittent failure, especially during prolonged rain spells. I'm speculating that the break is about 30 feet away from the socket, buried somewhere in the space between the floors and virtually inaccessible. I have considered installing a connecting wire from a nearby good neutral wire from the bathroom lights, but there is no easy way to do this without removing wall paper, sheet rock, etc. The first socket in this particular daisy chain is in another bathroom, and is a GFCI socket. Second question: Would the ground to neutral connection I am proposing trip the GFCI?
The intermittent failures (which can last for hours or days) are driving me nuts. Any other suggestions for how to fix this without breaking into the sheet rock would be welcome.