The Mystery of the Possessed Ceiling Fan Light Solved

So yesterday, the light in the ceiling fan started acting very strange. I turned the light on from the wall switch (it has a remote as well), and within a few seconds the light started cycling from really dim to really bright over and over and over again. C & D were over, so I called them both in to see it. There was some ponderings about whether it indicated pending lightbulb failure or paranormal activity.

I considered leaving the light on and seeing how long it would take to burn out, but I wanted The Husband to see it, so I turned it off and left it off until he got home.

I dragged him into the bedroom (get your mind out of the gutter!) as soon as he got home, and we both stood there and pondered the behaviour for a minute. Then R suggested that I turn the light off, and rather than walking to the door and flicking the switch, I picked up the remote. It was then that I noticed that the "Light" button was depressed and the LED that indicates that the remote is communicating was flickering.

Turns out that the light has a built in dimmer function that we hadn't realized was there, and if you hold the button down instead of just pressing and releasing, it changes the brightness of the light.

The really cool thing about that is that since we moved into this house, we've been cursing how dim the bedroom light is. Turns out it was just on a dim setting. So now we've got it turned up and can actually see things in the room, and all is well.

This post was *way* more interesting in my head than it is on screen.