Do I have to gut to rewire a prewar?

Hello all. As a leak trickled down from my 4th floor neighbor to me, two floors down, and opened up a hole in my bathroom ceiling, I inevitably have to start considering at least fixes, if not renovations. At 400 sq.ft total, it's not much, but seems like quotes for labor alone to redo the place are coming in between 50-100k. I'm fairly handy but I know there are plenty of tasks I can't and... [more]

Hello all. As a leak trickled down from my 4th floor neighbor to me, two floors down, and opened up a hole in my bathroom ceiling, I inevitably have to start considering at least fixes, if not renovations. At 400 sq.ft total, it's not much, but seems like quotes for labor alone to redo the place are coming in between 50-100k. I'm fairly handy but I know there are plenty of tasks I can't and shouldn't do myself. One of those things is rewiring. There's a non-load bearing wall I'd demo myself if it weren't for the fact that the panel is in it. And the panel is not up to code and I doubt anybody in the building is up to code at this point. I'm assuming to rewire the place would require tearing out every outlet, but I'm assuming there's no way to rewire the place without tearing up a route to each outlet. I'm assuming you can't just pull each cable because they might be secured to beams or whatnot... So it's almost making me consider abandoning taking out that wall and just patching up minor things and updating the fixtures. :-/ [less]