Long story short, moved into this house 2 years ago, 2 gang switches in bedroom, one for ceiling fan and light, one supposedly for switched outlet. Finally got around to finding which outlet was switched and found out the switch wasn't even wired. Sure, no problem, lazy, but not problem. As I was putting the face plate back on, I noticed the ground wire from the house just hanging free. Odd. Looked at the wiring going to the ceiling fan, and the neutral wire was wired to the ground going to the fan (and noticed some blackening on the non connected house ground).
I took down the fan to see the wiring and I have 2 green (grounds) wired together with the bare ground coming from the switch and a fourth wire (white, neutral?) all wired together. My assumption is that they used the bare ground to carry current to operate the fan and light independently via the switch. I'm just a DIYer, but this can't be safe can it? Should I just undo the entire thing, use a regular switch and wire my hot to hots (for fan and light fixture), ground to ground and neutral to neutral?
Photos below :