Voltage on lighting feed

[2Broke2Sleep]

I was disassembling a 5 gang box in a bathroom where a house's upstairs circuits come into. I shut down the power on all the circuits and double checked with my tic tracer all was de-energized. Pulling the romex cables out of the 5 gang box I brushed my arm against a 3 wire which powered a bedroom and got a pretty good shock. I pulled my meter out and saw 90V to ground on one and 30V to ground (and neutral) on the other. I walked in the bedroom and saw the new LED hi hats had a dim glow to them. There was also a circuit located nearby the switch bank for those lights. It would seem that this was a multiwire circuit with the neutral open??? What would be a good procedure to verify that? What made those hi hats glow?

[ActionDave]

Sounds like somebody jammed all the neutrals from different circuits under one wire nut.

[kwired]

Sounds like somebody jammed all the neutrals from different circuits under one wire nut.

+1

A "cross connection" may have occurred somewhere besides the 5 gang box OP was working in, but the return from those lights is definitely trying to pass through the 5 gang box in OP.

[kwired]

I was changing an old panelboard (sub feed panel within a building) on time, killed the feeder and was disconnecting branch circuit conductors. All raceway methods leaving this panel. Unhooked leads to breakers first, then while unhooking branch neutrals the lights in that area go out. Lights somehow are not tied to a neutral that returns to the panel they are supplied from. Schtuff happens.

[2Broke2Sleep]

I thought it was an open neutral, strange thing was no lights came on after I hooked the neutral up on the 'offending' cable to verify.... maybe the neutral was tied to another cable and that particular neutral was doing nothing....