Lighting, Light Fixtures, Ceiling and Exhaust Fans - Mystery switch

I know this is an oft-repeated inquiry, but I have a wall switch that seems to go to nothing. I tried every wall outlet in the vicinity with a lamp...nothing. No outside light is controlled by this switch. It does not open and close my neighbor's garage door.

I am attaching a picture of the switches, which shows the wiring and function of each one.

I would like to install recessed low-wattage reading lights in my living room, in addition to the ceiling fan/light in the middle of the room that already exists.

Thanks for any help!

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d99/turkish3/photo.jpg

It might be possible thatit was pre-wired for the ceiling fan itself, but when the fan was installed they bypassed the switch. Can you lower the fan canopy and see if you see any wires that are not used?

Also, when testing for a switched receptacle you need to check both the top and bottom. Often times only 1/2 is switched. Another possibility is that someone replaced the receptacles and forgot to break the tab on the hot side effectively bypassing the switch.

Can you elaborate a little on what you mean by top and bottom? The one that doesn't do anything only has those black wires running to it, whereas the functional switch has only white and red, no black. I know that doesn't mean much without knowing if they are hot, but I don't own a multimeter, so I don't know either. Maybe the color scheme makes sense to somebody?

When I was asking about top and bottom I was talking about a receptacle where you would plug in a cord for a lamp or something else. It is possible to have half work all the time and a switch to work the other half.

The switch on the left in your pic is a three way switch. There should be another switch to operate the same light.

Does either black wire from the switch in question come out of the same cable that has wires going to the other switch?

I believe you will find that, once properly wired, one switch will control the ceiling fan and the other switch will control the ceiling fan light kit. The fan and light simply are not wired properly at the ceiling /fan connection. Also, some fan manufacturers do not give you the capability (additional wire) to connect a fan/light in this manner. Your wire is probably 14/3 or 12/3 meaning there are 3 wires (black, red, and white) plus the naked ground. One wire comes into the switch box (usually black) HOT and splits to two switched (one black and one red) HOT wires, thus the option to control two appliances instead of one. This is allowed by Code because both "appliances" are wired in the same ceiling box, switch box, and are not seperable. The first number (12 or 14) tells you the guage (thickness) of the wire which also tells you how much wattage or the entire circuit can handle but this is not really pertinent to your question. I believe, if you remove the shroud at the fan/ ceiling connection, you will find a single wire (coming from ceiling box) not connected to anything, usually covered with a wirenut, that is a switched HOT wire. You should also find (coming from the fan) a blue (usually) wire. The blue wire is connected to the fan light kit.