Tell me about a time you inherited a messy or legacy codebase. How did you decide what to improve versus leave alone, and how did you deliver on top of it?

Imagine you move into a new apartment that's full of old furniture and clutter. You can't throw everything away at once because you still need to live there. You decide which pieces to keep, which to fix, and which to replace, all while making sure you can still cook dinner and sleep comfortably. That's exactly what this question is about: balancing improvement with delivery when you inherit someone else's code.