Kidde smoke detector courtesy of Home Depot
March 24, 2014 7:00 am
Kidde smoke detector courtesy of Home Depot
Something was pinging at 1:30 a.m. Yes, I said a.m.
Smoke detectors pick the dumbest time to die.
It pinged every 20 seconds from the alarm in my bedroom. It was about 15 feet from my formerly sleeping body. It woke me from a sound sleep in the middle of my deep REM. (I’m not sure what that means but it sounds scientific.)
My first thought was that there was a fire but the alarm would be loud and annoying and gorgeous men would be climbing in my window to save me. (I’m a sucker for a man in uniform!)
At first I tried to ignore it. I knew it wasn’t the battery because the beloved husband had checked them the week before. It was something wonky.
Ping! You can’t sleep with something pinging.
I looked over and the beloved husband was snoring like a drunken sailor on shore leave. He has trouble sleeping so I debated whether I should wake him up or let him sleep until the pinging did its job on him.
Another ping. No movement from the drunken sailor.
I woke him up. Misery loves company and he may have a clue on how to stop it from tormenting me.
He rolled out of bed and took the battery out. It kept on pinging. Our alarms are all wired together electrically.
He turned off the circuit breaker. It kept on pinging.
I am lying in my nice warm bed while all this was going on. Having some level of guilt (very low level) I said in a very soft hard-to-hear voice, “Do you want me to help you?” He either didn’t hear me at all or ignored me.
Either way I was golden. I hate running around at 2 a.m. (yes, it was 2 a.m. now) when I really should be sleeping.
He pulled out the manual. You know how some people have English as a second language? The person who wrote this manual had English as a 27th language. Nothing was easy to understand.
It was missing a trouble-shoot section too. You know the one. “If your cake comes out of the oven lopsided, you live on the side of a mountain. Move to the bottom flat part and your cakes will be even.” That’s the kind of advice they give.
Sometimes the first thing they suggest you do is “make sure the device is turned on.”
Really? Most Americans only go to the manual after they have done everything their intuition and Mr. Google has suggested. First up is usually to turn the thing on.
Back to the problem – After research and trial and error, he pulled ALL the batteries out and put the circuit breaker back on.
It stopped pinging.
He crawled back to bed and before you know it he was snoring like that drunken sailor again.
However, I was lying in bed wondering if we were properly protected from a fire. I lived in houses for 30 years without any alarm system but now I was terrified. I couldn’t sleep.
It didn’t help that most of the cats were also snoring like drunken sailors.
Then I wondered how I would save four cats if there was a fire. You need a plan. We don’t have a plan. We are doomed.
I could grab two and the beloved husband could grab two but one of them would be hiding under the bed. How long would it take to coax her out? That also means we don’t rescue our wallets or pocketbooks or anything like that.
Not even extra underwear. No makeup for the photos taken as we exit the house with four cats and a gorgeous fire fighter. This is heady stuff to worry about at 3:30 a.m.
Around 5 a.m. I was exhausted and fell asleep only to wake up an hour later. The taste of worry was still in my mouth. Either that or the garlic from last night.
Ultimately we may change out all the alarms. I don’t want to go through this again and we are not sure which one is bad. Mr. Google also said they have a life span of ten years.
We have been in our brand new home for eleven years. We have replaced ALL the kitchen appliances along with the heat pump, humidifier and water heater. Now we will replace the fire alarms. I am convinced that you should move every 7 seven years to be safe.
Posted by Kate Crimmins
Categories: Humor, Life at Home
Tags: appliance unreliability, cats, drunken sailor, fire alarm systems, fire exit plans, firemen, pets, sleep, smoke detectors
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[…] Everyone has had that incident. The alarm starts beeping at 3 a.m. and nothing will stop it. You can pull out the battery but our system is hard-wired so it keeps beeping. In your sleep fog you can’t quite tell which one is the problem and in the morning there are ten fire alarms on your front yard. I already wrote about that episode here. […]
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By It’s time to change! | Views and Mews by Coffee Kat on October 29, 2015 at 8:02 am
[…] is similar to our fire alarm fiasco we had in the […]
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By Another midnight crisis and still no emergency plans | Views and Mews by Coffee Kat on November 18, 2014 at 8:01 am
Thank you for the most enjoyable post. Been there myself. I’ve learned not to ask my spouse to get up – he has ripped one out of the ceiling to leave wires dangling. Like waking a monster!
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By Eliza Waters on March 27, 2014 at 10:40 pm
Some years ago the same thing happened to my elderly parents. When my sister arrived for a visit the next morning she was surprised to find the smoke detector lying in a snow bank, still pinging!
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By oldgirlnewtricks on March 25, 2014 at 9:39 pm
Older folks don’t fool around! They take quick action that is sometimes hard to explain.
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By katecrimmins on March 26, 2014 at 9:08 am
Seems smoke detector batteries always die in th middle of the night…and I usually can’t find the extra battery.
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By Mary Strong-Spaid on March 25, 2014 at 3:47 pm
Reblogged this on Virginia Views and commented:
This post is absolutely hilarious and may keep you up all night snickering.
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By dorannrule on March 25, 2014 at 2:17 pm
This is one of the most hilarious posts I have read yet! I have to “reblog” it. 🙂
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By dorannrule on March 25, 2014 at 2:16 pm
Thanks!
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By katecrimmins on March 25, 2014 at 2:25 pm
Very, very funny…My first thought was that there was a fire but the alarm would be loud and annoying and gorgeous men would be climbing in my window to save me. (I’m a sucker for a man in uniform!) Also the moving every seven years, to be safe. This should be a keeper…good enough for a magazine I think. Very visual.
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By Susannah Bianchi on March 25, 2014 at 10:35 am
Thanks! I enjoyed writing this one although it’s all true and was painful at the time.
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By katecrimmins on March 25, 2014 at 1:58 pm
very funny…saw the whole thing…loved the cats snoring, sailor on leave…you offering your help hoping he didn’t hear you…and I know that ping…goes right through ya.
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By Susannah Bianchi on March 25, 2014 at 2:05 pm
This is so funny!! (English as his 27th language, drunken sailor cats, ha ha ha!) I wonder – do you think fire alarms and light bulbs are in cahoots? They all seem to go “out” around the same time – not exactly – but close enough together to make us nuts!
fun post! MJ
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By emjayandthem on March 25, 2014 at 6:55 am
Definitely in cahoots along with internet and cable service. That only goes out in the middle of something.
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By katecrimmins on March 25, 2014 at 9:07 am
This is a great story! Funny…except in the middle of the night. I have had them go off in the middle of the night, too, with the low battery, but I don’t remember having so much difficulty getting it to stop! Wow! I think your cats would find a way out, so you don’t have to worry about them. Your drunken sailor sleeper, now he might be a bigger problem. I like your thinking, though, on new appliances. I’m going to use the fire safety standard as a reason for some upgrades!
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By Three Well Beings on March 25, 2014 at 1:57 am
Love my new range. These things are like cars. You don’t buy them often so the bells and whistle upgrades are like toys to me.
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By katecrimmins on March 25, 2014 at 9:08 am
Kate ~ you did a stellar job with this post. I can see you lying there, deciding whether to wake the drunken sailor, worrying about no protection, making the cat evacuation plan, etc.
You should move. It’s time.
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By nrhatch on March 24, 2014 at 9:08 pm
Thank you! Yes, it’s time! At a minimum we need to be on one floor so the drop from the window isn’t so great.
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By katecrimmins on March 25, 2014 at 9:09 am
This is so funny!
I have been there and at that point it is only funny in retrospect. I remember when I was renting a room in a house with 4 other girls our smoke detector started dead battery beeping and we were all too short to reach it to take it down. So, two of us stood there confused and half asleep at 4 in the morning staring at it. It wasn’t until much later in the day, after I had gone to school, someone finally had the idea to get a chair and take it down (and buy a replacement battery).
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By TrishaDM on March 24, 2014 at 7:57 pm
You left it ping all day? I couldn’t stand the noise. We still don’t know what’s wrong with it because the battery is new. A mystery of life.
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By katecrimmins on March 24, 2014 at 8:02 pm
I wasn’t home. I only had to put up with it for a couple hours. I left for school after 6 because I couldn’t sleep with the noise (and left it to my roommates to deal with).
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By TrishaDM on March 24, 2014 at 8:04 pm
Smart girl!
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By katecrimmins on March 24, 2014 at 8:10 pm
The smoke detectors in our house also drive me mad. One alarm goes off and triggers the others to join in. Then I can’t tell which one to respond to. Maddening at any hour – but especially in the wee hours of the night. What does it mean that they have to be “hard wired?”
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By earthriderjudyberman on March 24, 2014 at 4:56 pm
Electrically wired with a battery as a back-up power source. It’s code in our area for fairly new construction.
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By katecrimmins on March 24, 2014 at 5:13 pm
I hate those beeps! We have a detector that sounds off when we turn on one of our hall lights…only then. This loud voice shouts Evacuate, Evacuate…etc. Beeps, beeps and more Evacuation shouts…then the pronouncement there is no carbon monoxide detected. Gee, thanks! Our cat, Gibby, takes off the notice to evacuate very seriously…every time! She hasn’t figured out that the shouter is kidding around. Oh well, makes life exciting…at least it excites our guests!
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By Vasca on March 24, 2014 at 4:55 pm
It could break up a dinner party! In my first apartment the detector was in the kitchen and went of whenever I fried anything. My ex called it the health alert.
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By katecrimmins on March 24, 2014 at 5:14 pm
OMG this is so funny! I mean, at your expense, sure, but isn’t that even better? I am also relieved to hear that I am not the only one who wonders how we would get 4 stubborn cats out of the house in the event of an emergency; and if we manage to get them outside hold on to them so they don’t get away, while still gazing into the eyes of the gorgeous firefighter. Hmm.
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By Jill Foer Hirsch on March 24, 2014 at 3:19 pm
I am working on that. I may write a book on herding cats although probably someone else already has.
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By katecrimmins on March 24, 2014 at 3:55 pm
Always in the middle of the night! I once changed out two batteries before realizing it was the carbon monoxide monitor plugged into the wall. Whomever calibrates the alarms found the perfect pitch to make them so annoying that they cannot be ignored. Good luck!
PS: a woman recently told me the firefighters would find her under bed…trying to get the cats. 🙂
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By Katie on March 24, 2014 at 10:37 am
That would be me! I am depending on my cats to wake me up before the alarm goes off because they smell something and it ain’t tuna!
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By katecrimmins on March 24, 2014 at 1:00 pm
LOL. Definitely not tuna!
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By Katie on March 24, 2014 at 4:41 pm
I think all our fire alarms are dead. I am the alarm for all things smokey, smelly, weird noises and odd happenings. CH can sleep and snore through anything.
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By Pix Under the Oaks on March 24, 2014 at 8:53 am
Usually I am the one who could sleep through anything and the beloved husband wakes up when a fish farts in our outdoor pond. The tone of the ping must have done it to me.
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By katecrimmins on March 24, 2014 at 9:14 am
I’ve been through the same thing. Our alarms only go off for no reason when my husband is out of town, so I generally have to do all of the above by myself. Bottom line: we replaced all the inexpensive bottom-of-the-line hardwired ones that came with the house with new sophisticated modern ones that do what they’re supposed to do when they are supposed to. Good money, well spent. Much cheaper than moving house.
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By Ally Bean on March 24, 2014 at 8:46 am
We looked at some that don’t require frequent battery changes but you cannot hard wire them. Code says ours have to be hard wired. New ones that are reliable are running about $30 here.
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By katecrimmins on March 24, 2014 at 9:16 am
Well, that’ll add up fast! There is a price for quiet, isn’t there?
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By Ally Bean on March 24, 2014 at 10:18 am
There is nothing that drives me more insane than a beeping smoke detector. Why do the batteries always die at 2:00 a.m.?
I’m with you, moving every 5-7 years before things start to break is a great idea. That’s what my parents did when I was growing up.
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By Jill Weatherholt on March 24, 2014 at 8:15 am
They were smart people!
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By katecrimmins on March 24, 2014 at 9:16 am
You remind me of Erma Bombeck. I know you could write a book about each and everyone one of all those replacements. (I wonder if you ever tried replacing the beloved …. )
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By ladysighs on March 24, 2014 at 8:06 am
Actually the beloved husband replaced some faulty husbands I had in the past. Their batteries ran out.
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By katecrimmins on March 24, 2014 at 9:17 am
I don’t think I would have the patience for a replacement. 😦 But it seems all has worked out well for you. 🙂
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By ladysighs on March 24, 2014 at 11:58 am
I didn’t think I did either but it happened.
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By katecrimmins on March 24, 2014 at 12:55 pm
“The Life of Riley” had a line for moments like yours, I believe it was “—”What a revoltin’ development this is!” When stuff like that happens in our household, we say “How rude” as if an inanimate object could change its behavior.
So glad your sailor could fix the problem AND go back to sleep. Perhaps you had to take a nap that afternoon?
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By georgettesullins on March 24, 2014 at 8:05 am
Let’s just say I was out of whack for a day or so but that’s not all that unusual.
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By katecrimmins on March 24, 2014 at 9:18 am