Never trust a house plant. When you least expect it, it will turn on you. My philodendron, for example, knocked out the electricity in the back of the house three months ago. Until last week I had to rely on extension cords to run things back there.
It was early March and I had just turned on an electric heater. Suddenly, the lights went out. Circuit breaker, I thought. After all, I had several lights, two ceiling fans and an assortment of computers and printers running. It had happened before.
This time though, it wasn’t the breaker. I started checking outlets. Maybe it was a loose wire? More than 13 outlets later, I found nothing.
Next I turned my attention to the ceiling fan. Hadn’t it mysteriously stopped running a few months earlier only to inexplicably go back to work a couple weeks later? I hustled up the stepladder and took a look. Nothing there either.
There was one weird thing however. All the wall outlets are wired in a series, a wide circle threading through the office and studio. The first three of these outlets worked fine. Everything after that was dead. My circuit tester said there was a short somewhere.
I blindly pursued one dead end (or dead circuit) after another. Last week it dawned on me that I had never checked the third outlet. Why would I? It was working fine.
Cautiously, I opened it and there it was: the wires leading to the fourth outlet were burnt black, the insulation was gone and one wire had broken.
Just above the outlet, looking smug, sat the philodendron. Turns out, when I watered the plant, a few drops rolled into the outlet. Over time it caused the short.
The lights were back on in an hour. And, believe me, I will never trust my philodendron again.
