Why has my 10 year old ceiling fan suddenly started shocking me through the fan pull chain?
DANGER!!!
This sounds like a ground fault. They are particularly dangerous if you get wet, which is why Ground Fault Circuit Interrupters have been required for many years in kitchens and bathrooms, among other places.
If you have shoes on, you are insulated from the floor. Without shoes, a little bit of electricity makes its way from the fan through you to the floor. A little bit of electricity can be fatal if it passes through your heart, so this is a serious problem.
Why would a fan suddenly have this problem? Hard to say for sure, but anything with moving parts can have a small problem - e.g., a moving part of the motor rubbing on insulation - eventually become a big problem.
As much as we all like to have things last &quot;forever&quot;, the reality is that many appliances, small and large, typically last in the range of 10 - 15 years. Sometimes, as with televisions and other electronics, they become obsolete. But with many other devices they simply wear out.
While the problem may be repairable, unless this is a high-end fan I don't think it is worth the effort and the risk of not quite fixing it correctly. This is particularly the case since fans are normally hardwired but not on GFCI, so there is no easy &quot;early warning system&quot; as there would be if you simply plugged it into a GFCI receptacle.