Scantlings

Odd thing just started to happen to the car belonging to my son's fiancee ... when she turns the ignition off and takes out the key, the day time running lights will not turn off, and if the fan is running it will not turn off either ... obviously an electrical problem ... is there a relay or some such thing that should click 'off' when the ignition is turned off?

I suspect you are on the right track- modern cars are complicated and lots of things happen when you turn the key. At one point my Land Cruiser would occasionally have nothing happen when I turned the key to start- the dealer said there were something like 16 solenoids that had to properly do their thing in order for the starter motor to get juice. Hopefully your two problems will isolate the failure.

You should call Click-n-Clack, the guys on NPR. They love problems like this.

I don't think they've been live for a few years, but I think they still have a web site.

Civics of that age have a history of cracked solder joints in the DRL module under the dash (not in the fuse or relay panel). Some online suggestions on opening up the module (easy), identifying the bad connections with a magnifying glass and reflowing the solder.

Since it is two different problems, you may want to look at the ignition switch. Could be a stuck contact in it. Try a gentle tap on the ignition switch with the handle of a screwdriver to try to encourage a stuck contact. Otherwise, it's a look for a bad relay trial and error job.