Electrical – Crazy wiring issue

Don't worry about why. If you try to only fix the problem, you may miss something. Worry about getting it correct!

Black == HOT
White == Neutral
bare == ground

(in North America -- Europe is different!)

Open it up again and make sure it is connected as follows:

• white from panel to white from outlet to white from light
• black from panel to black from outlet to black from switch
• white from switch to black from light
• all grounds together (and to box)

The wire going to the switch has no neutral in this case. The black wire is "always hot" and the white wire is "switched hot". I like to wrap black electrical tape around the end of the white insulation (without covering the copper wire) to indicate that, despite being white, it is not actually "neutral".

Speculation on how it was mis-wired: (copied and corrected from my own comment later on) If removing the ceiling bulb made the outlet light not work at all, then you were getting some sort of current flow through the bulb. So yes, you must have had it in series. CFL has circuitry so could perhaps pass more current while starting up (hence the increase in brightness of the outlet light for a second) after turning on the switch. As for where the power was going when the switch was off... It could be that the CFL was "absorbing" and "returning" some small amount of current (a capacitive load), enough to lightly switch an LED light; they don't need much.

Given the capacitors and inductors involved in even a simple circuit for a CFL, it's not unimaginable that this is possible. I don't have an LED night-light to test this but you could do this yourself.

If properly wired, the smaller prong of a plug is the hot wire. Bend the larger prong of the night-light or otherwise set it up so that only the "hot" prong is connected. Then touch the exposed prong to the side and/or tip of a CFL and see if the night-light lights.

As a more personal example... Think of standing on a rubber mat (or wearing rubber-soled shoes) and touching the hot wire with your finger. Don't do it -- just think it! You'd feel a "buzz" even though you're not grounded or touching a "neutral" wire. Most of us can relate to this from some experience in our past. Your body has a capacitance and will absorb and return electrons as the voltage in the hot wire oscillates at 60Hz.

Odd that you said you had a white wire that was hot. Both white wires should be neutral and have no voltage. Seems to me wires would go like this: connect all black wires together. That will run hot all the time to the fan as well as sending power downstream. Next tie all white wires together. That will provide neutral to the fan as well as pass neutral downstream. Ideally there would be a bare copper wire coming from the hot side and another to continue downstream. The red to blue should switch the light, providing that blue is the correct one for the light.