I have a ceiling fan wire set in our home that did not work when we moved in. It was/is exposed and we never saw a working fixture there. There are 3 wires. One black(1), one white(2) and one exposed wire(3) without a sheath. I had assumed that it was hot, neutral and ground respectively. But upon testing both wires 1 & 3 are hot. It goes to a double switch wall plate. There is only one switch for this particular ceiling light (left). The second switch has a white wire daisy chained to the first. The second switch (right) controls 3 things and does work. The closet light in that bedroom, a hallway linen closet just around the corner and a wall power outlet that only works when the second (right switch) is turned on.
Power only registers at the ceiling fan wiring spot when the left wall switch is turned on.
I've tried about every combination i thought safe in connecting the wires of a new ceiling fan/light but no dice. The fan/light has blue, black, white and ground wires. Once i found that two wires coming from the ceiling were hot that it would be one of two things. White to white, blue to one hot and black to the other hot. Or white to white and all hot together(?)
Please forgive my ignorance on the subject, stated above is my basic understanding of home wiring. And there are no other wall switches for these lights.
Any thoughts on what i'm missing? Attached are pics. The ceiling pic shows white wire on the left, unsheathed wire middle and black wire on the right. 
Best Answer
Yeah, I see what they did now.
First off, they are feeding the right switch from a junction box in the ceiling on the white wire. Then the black wire on the right switch is a switch leg back to the closet, linen, receptacle. So, this all works because the neutral for that is in the junction box in the closet, linen, or receptacle. Wherever it is fed from.
Then they jumpered the hot white wire to the left switch. So, when the left switch is thrown it only energizes the black wire and there is no neutral to the light box. The white wire has been cut off.
The problem here is there is no neutral in the switch box to power the ceiling fan. 😞
The fact that they used three way switches to do this is not a problem since they wired them as single pole switches. They could be easily replaced if you wish but it will not fix your problem.
You would need to get a cable from the feed junction box to the switches that has 3 wires and a ground. So, you would have a hot feed to the both switches, a switched leg to the closet,linen,rec., AND a neutral for the left switch to power the ceiling fan. There are other ways to do this that may be easier but the concept is the same. You need a neutral wire.
Good luck and stay safe!