Are there any street or yard lights in your area in places that seem odd or don't seem to make sense? Street lights in the middle of nowhere, wrong type of fixture for location, etc.

I can think of one. I drive often on a highway that was two lane but has been made four lane. A church moved across the road to make way for the new northbound lanes. Originally there was a bucket light behind the church, but somehow it wasn't removed when the church was demolished and also managed to remain when the new road was being built and after the new power poles and lines were installed. So now that the new northbound lanes are open, it's a few feet from the road with no buildings or anything around it. It's also missing the refractor and bulb.

Also along that same highway is an abandoned skating rink. In the parking lot there are cobras on metal poles just like the ones on the highway which seems a little odd as rarely are those used as parking lot lights.

I can't really think of any others, as a kid I was always fascinated by seeing yard lights that weren't used. I wanted to know the story on why they weren't used anymore or what was wrong with them, how old they were, etc.

I saw a fixture, which was a flood light fixture, and it was pointing at someones backyard, maybe it was a 250w HPS. lol

There's a house here that has some workshops behind it. On one of the power poles leading to the shops, behind the house, there was originally a GE Powr/bracket of 175W MV. It was replaced with an AEL ballast-in-arm of 100W HPS, I believe in the mid 1990's. It had been out for the last 10 years or so. The owner of the house, who is the owner of the workshop, too, put up a NEMA head of 175W MV on the side of his house, quite close to said power pole and non working HPS. He subsequently replaced the MV with a LED "equivalent". I have noticed the HPS light has been removed, but only in the past month.

I don't get the part where a homeowner would pay for a non functioning rental light for all those years. Seems to me if I had one and it stopped working, I'd have it either fixed or removed. If I remember correctly, the charge is just over 10 dollars per month.

There's a house here that has some workshops behind it. On one of the power poles leading to the shops, behind the house, there was originally a GE Powr/bracket of 175W MV. It was replaced with an AEL ballast-in-arm of 100W HPS, I believe in the mid 1990's. It had been out for the last 10 years or so. The owner of the house, who is the owner of the workshop, too, put up a NEMA head of 175W MV on the side of his house, quite close to said power pole and non working HPS. He subsequently replaced the MV with a LED "equivalent". I have noticed the HPS light has been removed, but only in the past month.

I don't get the part where a homeowner would pay for a non functioning rental light for all those years. Seems to me if I had one and it stopped working, I'd have it either fixed or removed. If I remember correctly, the charge is just over 10 dollars per month.

Sometimes the power company won't send anyone to remove those rental lights for years, the cost of streetlighting power is considerably cheaper then residential power (about 1/5 the cost) and the power company has workers to pay, mileage to pay, I've seen them leave them up until they die just because it's cheaper a single service call can cost the same as running a 70 watt HPS for like the next 8 years, and if you where to replace the lamp yourself they would likely not even notice it, so long as you don't call them and raise the issue, but with that said if you change the bulb and they remove it the next day don't get upset either if you weren't paying for it, because they can bill you for it retroactively if they can show you intended to defraud them..


But the oddest light I've seen was a single HPS yard blaster near the top of a mountain and it stuck out since there wasn't another light for miles, but in the day time you could see the antenna tower (which was unlit at night or they had very good cutoff's) so it's some type of cell tower or radio repeater but in normally dark areas which would only be accessible by walking in or helicopter they should not be running them unless they are working there because sometimes people go to dark areas so it should be dark..
 

Sometimes the power company won't send anyone to remove those rental lights for years, the cost of streetlighting power is considerably cheaper then residential power (about 1/5 the cost) and the power company has workers to pay, mileage to pay, I've seen them leave them up until they die just because it's cheaper a single service call can cost the same as running a 70 watt HPS for like the next 8 years, and if you where to replace the lamp yourself they would likely not even notice it, so long as you don't call them and raise the issue, but with that said if you change the bulb and they remove it the next day don't get upset either if you weren't paying for it, because they can bill you for it retroactively if they can show you intended to defraud them..

Maybe that was the case, I know the guy but not enough to ask him about his power bill. I don't think that's the case, however. Normally, they remove the rentals when the customer asks to have it removed (or in the case of non-payment, where they cut out power to the buildings).

Sometimes the power company won't send anyone to remove those rental lights for years, the cost of streetlighting power is considerably cheaper then residential power (about 1/5 the cost) and the power company has workers to pay, mileage to pay, I've seen them leave them up until they die just because it's cheaper a single service call can cost the same as running a 70 watt HPS for like the next 8 years, and if you where to replace the lamp yourself they would likely not even notice it, so long as you don't call them and raise the issue, but with that said if you change the bulb and they remove it the next day don't get upset either if you weren't paying for it, because they can bill you for it retroactively if they can show you intended to defraud them..


But the oddest light I've seen was a single HPS yard blaster near the top of a mountain and it stuck out since there wasn't another light for miles, but in the day time you could see the antenna tower (which was unlit at night or they had very good cutoff's) so it's some type of cell tower or radio repeater but in normally dark areas which would only be accessible by walking in or helicopter they should not be running them unless they are working there because sometimes people go to dark areas so it should be dark..
 

Around here they usually leave the lights up when people stop paying. The house next door had two HPS buckets and when the owner stopped paying, they took the bulbs out and left the lights up. One has since been removed when they were putting a new transformer on the pole when a new house was built last year. However the one on its own pole closer to the front is still there. Also there is another yard light on my street that hasn't been used in a while and still there. And of course that MV GE Powr/bracket that I mentioned awhile back hasn't been used in several years and too still there.

I noticed a house on my street has a dual PAR 38 floodlight holder in the front yard, on a post, and the lights are just aimed at a corner of the yard, with nothing there. 

Not so much lights in odd places, but one really strange thing that happen`s here, (and its something I can`t even get a straight answer from off street lighting engineers), is when they change a whole street of columns and lanterns, and just leave one of the old ones in place!!!!
I`ve seen this all over too, not just in our town???, for instance, with the recent changeover from LPS lamps to LED in my town, they removed ALL BUT ONE!, of the concrete columns, that carried a mix of 35watt LPS lamps in GEC lanterns, and 50watt HPS lamps in a mish mash of different lanterns, for new steel columns, with Philips Uni-Street LED lanterns.

This happened along a road called Sutton Lane, where there was about 20 odd columns, but Cheshire East changed every one, except one random concrete column, that is still running a LPS lamp today?, shown on google maps its this exact one here.

Why would they change all the others, and leave just this one??, does this happen in the states at all?

It happens in my part of Canada, too. I have no idea why, though.

The irony is too, out of all the ones like this, (dating from the early 1960s), they left the worse damaged one, so its not even worth saving!, the bowl on this one is smashed all at the back, and the bowl hinge at the front is broke off

Here the ones left behind are mostly working ones. They usually get replaced when they reach a natural death or if a car hits the pole.

Another one near me, on my street that's not such an odd location, but more odd choice of fixtures. This house had an HPS NEMA bucket style light (not a yard blaster but a true NEMA) on a pole near the garage. I always thought it was a rental one, so not unusual at all. Then maybe a year or two ago, they disconnected that, but left it on the pole and now there's two HPS floods on the pole with it, with yellow NEMA stickers. It's just odd how they would use all of these utility type fixtures instead of just getting something from Home Depot. I'm almost certain they're not rentals because I can see the wire is coming from the garage.

I'll just leave this here. And no, it hasn't worked for as long as I can remember.