Ha, well it was written in VB.NET, so that alone ought to make me cringe. And I was building on my existing knowledge of VBA, so...
Apparently a few years ago they had a minor panic because they realised they had no idea where the database was actually stored. I'd gotten some MSSQL space from the (outsourced) DB guys- the guy who gave me the space had also, of course, left. Fun times...