wrote in message
ups.com...
I took a quick look inside the two 3-way switches (one upstairs one
down). Just by looking at the wires I have a feeling the neutral is
from a different circuit (ie upstairs is all old cables, except the
switch has hot/neutral romex coming in).

Is there anything "wrong" with the way the person did this, if its what
you suggsted? Is it against code?

It's "wrong" and it's against code.

But it isn't that big of a deal.

The problem is that the "code" saws that all the wires in a circuit are
supposed to be run together. Think of a cheap extension cord made of "zip
cord" wire. Were you to separate the wires the shock hazard would be about
the same as before but you end up with higher "stray" electro-magnetic
fields and in high current applications, metal objects that find themselves
between the two conductors might get warm. But it's to more of a safety
issue that the old style series Xmas lights from the 50s/60s or the series
street lights or series airport marker lights.

If you don't really understand the problem you will do more harm than good
in attempting to "fix" that which is only slightly broken.

Were it my house, I would likely figure out what mistake was made and see if
I can fix it. Or more accurately, I would have done that when I first moved
in and found such a problem. If I found such a "problem" today, I would
just ignore it and find something more important to fix.