I've seen a basement addition. The vasement of an apartment house (ca. 1900, pretty damp brick basement) is split up into cubicles for the tenants. Originally the cubicles (actually small rooms with more or less solid brick walls) didn't have any wiring, just the hallways were wired with ancient lead cable. At soem point a tenant decided to tap into the libne and get power to his cubicle. He put in a wooden junction box just like the one in the picture, just without the terminal strips (just twisted and taped connections) and a sheet metal cover.
