Alright, 7 hours after the issue with the electrics was first noticed, the sparky finally sorted it. Apparently in our main connection box thing (the little black box that connects the main street wires to the house) had a lose connection inside. Apparently that can manifest as crackling in power points, lamps flickering, fire panels making grinding noises, emergency lights going on and smoke alarms acting funny. And, I'm going to sound like a houso here (interestingly, urgent after hours repairs in state care homes are handled by the housing commission maintenance people too), but that was absolutely cooked in the head

But goodness, I've always been taught to be like really scared of electricity which I suppose makes sense, but then the electrician is just plodding around with live mains wires and poking them with plyers. That definitely did reassure me that I would've been safe though

Also I need to be up in 6 hours, but naturally I'm here bitching on Lemmy about electricity instead of sleeping. Night peoples, and don't fuck with electricity, unless you're a confident sparky, in which case, poke away with plyers as much as you'd like!