Electric switches

I am guessing that the lamps in question have LED or CFL lamps rather than filament?

If so, this is a relatively common problem. It results from a combination of low energy lighting which needs only a tiny current to start to glow faintly (or sometimes to flash intermittently), coupled with all the extra wire in a two way switching arrangement.

If you look at a typical wiring diagram for two way switching:

Its not dangerous, since there is very little current involved - if you put any significant load on the wire its voltage will fall away quickly.

Thanks. Nice to know it's not dangerous, so I don't need to come downstairs from the bedroom just to make sure I've turned them off the right way,

Thanks again,

Lawrie

Try a different brand of lamp in the fitting. Some are more prone to this than others.

I very much doubt it, its LED I assume and they are notorious for picking up induced currents that makes them glow a bit. Brian

If it annoys you I guess something like half meg resistor on the floating end to neutral might fix it.

Of course it will use a tiny current. Maybe a capacitor might work? Brian

One might think that a good design of the unit might stop this from happening. Brian

I wonder if that 'symtom' could not be very useful in some cases. For example, my wife refuses to turn on a light at night if she is on her way to the bathroom but there is some light - an orange glow from the digital alarm clock and light in the hall from the smart meter sitting on the ottoman and some light in the bathroom from the streetlights on the main road about 150m away, but there must be cases where everything is in pitch darkness.

A suitable value of mains rated capacitor between live and the switched side of a LED lamp could give just a gentle glow.

We get enough light from the LEDs in the two smoke alarms on the landing, and the 'pilot light' from the non-maintained emergency light on the stairs. The bedroom is illuminated by the three LEDs on the phone!