Ha! Same thing happened to me. I found the second hot when I reached into the gang box to move the wires from the first circuit. Found them the hard way. They had no purpose in the box–it was just a convenient transition point for whatever was going on.
Not unusual, but not cool if you can avoid it.
Assume nothing, test everything.
Fair enough on neutral sharing.
This was a particularly fun junction box as they converted two locations in a 4 way switch setup into outlets running off two breakers. It was a head scratcher figuring out what they had done (new wall so the other switches weren’t in the same room…). I went with disabling the two new outlets and calling an electrician to pull new wires. (Sometimes you have to admit defeat)
Eventually Electroboom will run out of ways to show you “what not to do”, right?
That’s always one of the joys [/sarcasm] of home ownership, sorting out the dodgy work done by prior owners. I found a live electrical outlet buried behind a kitchen cabinet, a live electric line disconnected and hanging down in the basement ceiling, and a live electric line connected to an old time radio antenna jack. I discovered that last one with my fingers when pointing out how cool the jack was.
I’ve had my fair share of blown fuses and ruined leads by being careless about making sure I was on AC and in the right range. No blown meters, at least.
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