Replacing light fixture in older apartment

Question

I'm trying to replace a flush mount with a pendant light in my old Chicago apartment. Have replaced some more straight forward light fixtures before, but realized I’m a little out of my depth. Would love for someone to take a look and help me figure out what’s going on before I electrocute myself. Hoping the solution is painfully obvious and I’ve just missed it. :) All of the uncapped wires are hot except for the white bundle.

1. I can’t find a ground screw—is there somewhere else I can attach my ground wire?
2. I know the white bundle goes to the neutral fixture wire, but should I attach both of the hot wires to the black fixture wire? Only one was connected previously, but I can’t figure out what to do with the other.

Before disconnecting old fixture:

Answer 1

In the future, take a picture before disconnecting any wires from fixtures/switches/etc.

I can’t find a ground screw—is there somewhere else I can attach my ground wire?

That's because you're in Chicago and they have a shortage of ground screws :-)

Well, no shortage of ground screws. But in Chicago you use conduit, and metal conduit connected to metal fixtures means you have ground without doing anything provided you have metal fixture case/yoke to metal box contact. If the new fixture is all plastic (ugh!) and you have to ground via a wire then it is possible but gets a little trickier, especially working above your head.

I know the white bundle goes to the neutral fixture wire, but should I attach both of the hot wires to the black fixture wire? Only one was connected previously, but I can’t figure out what to do with the other.

Something is very wrong if you have more than one "really hot" wire here. My guess is you either have some phantom/induced voltage on all but one of the "hot" wires, or one of those is a switched hot and that if you check with the switch turned off you will get only one hot wire. In fact, if that is the case then the wire that changes when you flip the switch is the hot wire you should connect to the fixture.

Aside from the neutrals and the switched hot, generally speaking all the other wires (should be one hot, one or more not hot) should be connected together.

Answer 2

If you haven't already called the apartment management to get them to take care of this for you, since working on electrical in a rental without being an electrician is illegal...

• Pigtail the white bundle of neutrals from the "before" picture to the neutral white on your new fixture.
• Attach the one red hot from the "before" picture to the black hot wire on the new fixture.
• Attach the green/bare ground from the fixture to a ground screw screwed into the proper hole in the back of the box because the metal conduit/box is your ground "wire".

Which red wire in the "after" picture is the one hanging out of the box in the "before" pic is up to you to determine. Also, you'll need to reconnect the other red wire in the "after" picture to whatever it was disconnected from in order to reestablish the lighting that now doesn't work.

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Now's a good time to call the management and have their electrician come fix this up.

The reason the average Joe (of which I am one) is not allowed to DIY electrical work in a multi-family dwelling is that if you manage to burn the place down with faulty wiring, you're impacting a lot of families. If I do it in my house, I'm only impacting my family. (At least, that's my understanding of the rationale - I could be wrong...)