The last 3 days have been, shall I say, unusual. Thursday night at about 9:30pm all of our smoke alarms started going off at the same time. We have NINE of them – one in the basement, 3 on the main floor, and 5 upstairs. The noise was deafening. So, Randy went around and started unplugging them. They are all connected by electricity, although 2 of them also had battery back-ups. We thought maybe the batteries needed to be replaced. So, after we got all of them unplugged (the one in our bedroom is on our vaulted ceiling, so this required getting the ladder out of the shed, setting it up, and working off of it to unplug that one), and replaced the 9-volt batteries, the noise finally stopped, and we plugged them all back in.
The next night at approximately 9:30pm we were sitting in the family room watching a DVD and they all started going off again! So, we went through the same routine of unplugging them all, including getting the ladder back out of the shed for the one in our bedroom. This time we decided to leave them all unplugged for the night and install all new ones the next day.
Saturday, after talking to a guy from church that works with fire and smoke alarms, Randy went to Home Depot and bought all new ones. I’m sure the ones in our home had been there for at least 10 years, and that’s when you are supposed to replace them. One of the smoke detectors that he bought was damaged, so he had to drive back down there and exchange it. But, finally, all of the smoke detectors were replaced. Randy could use a chair or a step-ladder to install most of them, but once again, he had to get the ladder out of the shed to do the one in our room.
Everything seemed to be fine when we hit the sack last night, until about 1:30am when the smoke detector in our bedroom started chirping. It didn’t wake Randy – it’s probably at a pitch that he doesn’t hear real well – but it really bothered me. I did not want to wake him, so I finally had to go and lie down on Dylan’s empty bed and close both doors. I tried for over an hour to go to sleep, but I could still hear it. So, I remembered that Randy had some ear plugs (for shooting guns) in his side of the closet. I got those and put them in my ears, but I couldn’t get them to stay in. So, I finally went downstairs to the couch. Since there was only one door closed between the detector and me, I could hear it better than before. I went into the office, closed the door, put the cushions from that loveseat on the floor behind the desk, and lay on them there. I could still hear the chirping, even when the heater came on (I was next to a return vent, so it was louder there). I turned on the desktop computer so that it would make a humming noise. I had to turn off the monitor because it was glowing blue all over the room, but I finally could not hear the chirping and was able to go to sleep. Around 7am I got up and got breakfast for my mother and went upstairs and turned off my alarm that was going off, and went back to the office and got a little more sleep.
I know I don’t hear as well as I used to, but last night I wished I had been deaf.
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