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I saw this and I had to reply. I was five and I never stopped playing with those touch lamps until I figured out the mechanism that made it work. And...
Even simplier than power spikes. Since the way of inductance went out to make those buggers turn on and off (ie had a little charge and an electroscope to measure when that slight charge entered from the lamp to your body), they usually use radio transmittors to make them work. You know how when you walk to close to a portable radio in just the right way you lose reception? Well a radio field is emmitted around those and when you touch it, you just became a large antenna to drain its power.
Those sensors weren't the best of things because of power spikes, and still bad without. So anything that created a radio signal, like your cordless phone, cellphone, and even your TV when you turn it on and off could make a strong enough signal to trip it. And yes, you can imagine 5 year old me holding a bloody lamp near a TV and using various means to create static on me to tap them, use various metals to trip it, and then growing board when the home computer broke and could take it apart before we threw it out!!
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