Volkswagen Repair: 99 Jetta Wolf Electrical, spark plug wires, philips screwdriver

Question
I "think" I might be at the beginning stages of an electrical problem.  (1) The interior light won't shut off automatically, even though all the doors have been shut and re-shut. (2) When I turn the car completely off and I don't turn off the lights, the parking lights stay on. I have day-time running lights and I think the only time they are supposed to go off is when you pull up the e-brake.  Just a little recent history on the car:  Recently the batter blew up in it about two months ago.  I had that fixed of course.  Then the fog lamps went, so those were replaced and then just last week I had the distributor cap, spark plug wires and spark plugs replaced.  With the exception of the spark plugs, the other repairs were the first of their kind since I bought the car almost 6 years and 70,000 miles ago brand new.  Any insight.  I guess I have an overall basic question.  Is there a way to test the electrical system without tearing the car apart?  

Answer
Doing electrical is a one by one step thing.  You gotta see what is and is not related.   1)interior light thing is actuated by depressing a black switch located on the hinge side of the door.  Just open a door and look.  There is a black button on the body about midway between upper and lower hinges.  Press it in with your finger - the light should go out.  Try it with the other doors.  One of these switches may have gunk on it from the inside.  Take a philips screwdriver and remove the switch.  You will see it has only 1 wire - the other is the body for ground.  See that the button is working correctly and is clean of green stuff that may be continuing to carry current.   Try this first and let me know.
2) When you leave your headlight switch on and shut off the car, yes the park lights stay on.  Why that is, I do not know the reasoning other than some kind of courtesy, however I have many a dead battery cause of it so I  put in a headlamp alarm.  Simple 3 wire thing from an auto supplier for a couple of bucks-it beeps when the lights are on and the key is out of the ignition.  
  The running light thing is weird to me - I would rather have a seperate toggle switch for that.

     The battery blowing--loose sparking connection and the battery being overcharged?  Possible reason for the foglamps blowing?  Have the charging checked out.

Not much else to tell you.  Sounds more age related.  The earlier ones were said to get water into the fuse box from a leaking windsheild.  While I have found the fuse boxes rusted somewhat, the leak most of the time does not come from the windshield but the trough that the wiper motor is in under the hood or under the trough where the fender meets the firewall. but it does not sound like that is it here as the door switches are located inside the door hinge post