Ugh, that's such a waste of time.

My old apartment complex was full of these quick fixes. You start with one temporary repair, then it just becomes a permanent part of the building. It's a weird way things slowly fall apart.

It's easy to get caught up in the numbers and forget why you went out there in the first place. That guy by the creek had it figured out, he was actually getting the experience you were just walking past. My own trips got way better when I stopped treating the map like a scorecard. The goal should be to see cool stuff, not just cover ground.

But is a back-fed box actually dangerous or just messy wiring? It sounds more like a code violation than something that would cause immediate harm. Those testers beep for a lot of things, not all of them are critical. I've seen similar stuff that just meant the light wouldn't turn off right, not that it was a fire waiting to happen. Sometimes a headache is just fixing bad work, not preventing disaster.

That "map it carefully and wait" plan sounds nice in theory. But stuff degrades fast once it's exposed. Sometimes you have to make a call and live with the outcome.