I believe the wiring in my apartment is bad. I plugged an appliance into an outlet near my kitchen and heard a click. I think the click was a GFCI outlet. I checked the breakers in my breaker box, and none of them were toggled. All of my breakers were in their on/enabled state.

There is a GFCI outlet in my kitchen that doesn't appear to be operating correctly. If I press the "test" or "reset" buttons, nothing happens. There is no power to this GFCI or any of the outlets in the vicinity of it. I cannot find a way to restore power to any of these outlets.

Does my apartment have bad wiring? What should I do about this?

  • try turning off the breaker that feeds that GFCI, unplug any items plugged in recent. And then try resetting. – spicetraders Dec 25 '16 at 17:40
  • @spicetraders that didn't work. The test button on the GFCI goes in, but doesn't click (most likely because the outlet is already tripped), and the reset button on the GFCI doesn't budge at all. I'm not sure if this was clear in my question, but the other outlets that have also lost power are all regular, non-GFCI outlets. – Kurt Tomlinson Dec 26 '16 at 15:23
  • it was worth a try I have seen a few older GFCIs that just don't like to reset with power on. As for the non-GFCIs they are being feed by the GFCI. As others stated the GFCI is likely failed. – spicetraders Dec 26 '16 at 16:06
  • The GFCI failed. After replacement, the circuit is now functioning normally. – Kurt Tomlinson Jan 15 '17 at 6:30

Edit: Clearly Tyson is correct. First you check for other GFI receptacles.

Contact apartment manager and have them make a diagnosis and repair. Most likely a GFI receptacle is at fault. These do have a finite lifetime.


Multiple GFI's incorrectly wired in series on the same circuit must be reset in the order they appear on the circuit. In other words, your appliance may have tripped more than on GFCI-- its not supposed to be done that way, but it happens quite frequently. While annoying it's not unsafe to have multiple GFCI's miswired in that manner.

Look for other tripped GFCI's (perhaps even the bathroom) that need to be reset, then try to reset the one in the kitchen you're having a problem reseting.

Your appliance likely has a ground fault and the GFCI is protecting you from shock.

It is possible for a GFCI to reach end of life, it's far more common tho to have multiple GFCIs miswired.

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