Want to see something scary
 

These are pics from my new house, all of this has been removed and/or corrected

Just curious: did you have any symptoms?

Symptoms? Not sure what you mean lol If you're asking if there was ever a fire or such...no

Flickering or dim lights, strange smells or noises? If the connections in the two top pics were soldered under the tape (probably not) you might have gotten away with it.

Gotten away with what? Even soldering those connections must be in boxes with lids.

I didn't do any of this...it was all in the house when I bought it...all the spliced in connections have been boxed in properly or removed, since some went to fixtures I removed. They weren't soldered either, just bent around the exposed wire.

I will say this, when I first got the power turned on the living room light, which btw was a wall mount light hanging from the ceiling (see pic) with no box, just screwed to a ceiling joist...was live all the time and the kitchen lights were not able to be turned on...this whole part of the house was more or less rewired

At least you had some hints before you bought the house. That is why we encourage people to open walls when renovating.

I was aware of all of this when I bought the house...all fairly easy to fix. The walls with the extension cord wiring were removed

I have to ask:
How many houses are up to Code?
How many have fires because they are not?
There is nowadays no way to get truthful answers about this off the Web.

I know people can have a "zero risk bias" but it is pretty costly to the HO if the Code people also have it. I doubt there is an incentive, at least with the NEC, to do a cost/benefit/safety analysis. I asked them. And I don't believe there are any consumer advocates on the Code Panels.
Would people buy AFCIs with their nuisance tripping if they didn't have to, for a zero or marginal increase in safety?

There is such a thing as Evidence Based Medicine, where they actually run impartial studies to see if medical techniques work, and some doctors are acting like this is such a breakthrough idea (. . . Duh. . . !) The book, "The Last Well Person" has more info on this.
If this evidence-based technique were used in many other fields it would put our capitalist society out of business.
Imagine vendors having the Burden of Proof that their products/techniques actually work. :clap: