Fuse/Brake Light Blowout

Hey guys, I am in need of dire help. My mom has a ’97 Corolla DX and recently, her brake light bulb and fuse for the brake lights both keeps blowing out! They’re not hard to replace but when they do go out, it’s dangerous because she doesn’t have any brake lights and she can’t shift from park to drive without doing this one “trick.” Anyways, does anyone have any ideas as to why it keeps shorting out? Where do I even start looking for possible causes? :(

I know that sometimes it helps to know what was recently done to a car when diagnosing problems so this is what’s been recently done. About 1 to 2 months ago, the exhaust manifold was replaced due to a crack in the stock one and last month, the blower unit was replaced since the old one went out.

But yeah, please help because I’m really stuck at this point. I posted this in the Corolla forum as well but am hoping that it's "general" enough that you GT pros could help out as well...thanks in advance...

Someone anyone!?! :(