My 98 Forester has a defect of some kind in the hatchback latch switch. It turns on the "door adjar" light and overhead light when closed but these both go off when it is about halfway up & stay off when up. there are two wires going to this latch (yellow & black)and no matter what I do to these wires, the dash light stays on. Anybody know how this is wired? Do they have a mercury sw somewhere that turns off the lights when its open? Thanks

It almost sounds like a ground issue. You may have some bare wire somewhere in the lift gate that is touching metal, grounding out and causing the light to be illuminated.

 

You're probably going to have to do some troubleshooting to narrow down the problem.