The sirens wailed

A little action in the neighborhood on Sunday:

A fire Engine in front of my house!

No, I wasn’t trying to cook again. Really. Actually I think I’m the only one in the near neighborhood that doesn’t set off the fire alarm regularly when I cook. The neighbor behind us sets the smoke alarm off every single time he cooks dinner! I’m starting to get used to that high pitched whine.

There was an alarm going off, however it wasn’t at my house. It was three houses away.

Their alarm had apparently been going off for quite a while, perhaps an hour, and their closest neighbor got worried. She’d gone over and knocked on the door a few times but no one answered. She couldn’t see or smell any smoke but she was worried. There was also the chance that it was a carbon monoxide alarm that was going off.

She called the fire department and told them that the alarm was going off, but since she could see or smell any smoke perhaps it wasn’t an emergency. The fire trucks came quickly despite her assurance that she didn’t think it was an active fire. Three engines arrived, but only two ended up stopping to check out the problem.

The firemen were really nice. I mean really nice. wink wink.

The firemen investigated as best they could by knocking on the doors and peeking in the windows. They didn’t think there was fire either, but they wanted to get in touch with the home owners just to make sure that everything was alright.

My husband, Chris, AKA “Sir Talk-A-Lot” knew the phone number for the small corner store up the street. The store owner and the people who own the house with the loud alarm are friends, so we thought that perhaps the store owner might know how to get in touch with them.

Just as Chris got on the phone with the store owner we noticed one of the neighbors and her kids coming up the street. She was very concerned when she realized all the firemen standing on her lawn were checking out her home.

It turns out that it was a smoke alarm that was going off, but it was going off because the batteries were low! All that trouble because of low batteries. I hope that the homeowner wasn’t upset that her closest neighbor called the fire department. I would certainly hope that one of my neighbors would call for help if they heard an alarm going off in our home for a long time.

I thought smoke alarms were supposed to beep when their batteries are getting low? Ours do, but occasionally they’ll get finicky and the alarm will go off for no reason when the batteries are dying. Actually our smoke alarms are pretty sensitive. As I said they don’t go off very often due to smoke from cooking, but the one upstairs will go off occasionally if I open the bathroom door too soon after a hot steamy shower. The moisture particles in the air set it off.

Our carbon monoxide and gas monitor is the worst. It’s supposed to be battery operated, or at least run temporarily on a battery if the power goes out, but it goes off as soon as it’s unplugged or if the power goes out. Oh and when it’s battery gets low – even though it’s plugged into the wall – it wails very loudly. It’s the most irritating noise and it’s so very loud and high pitched.

Naturally, the smoke alarm and carbon monoxide alarms batteries always start to fail in the middle of the night. Never during the day. Does that happen to you too?

I think the next time I change the batteries in all the alarms I’m going to do it in the middle of the night. That way, perhaps they’ll all run out in the middle of the day. Well, I can dream can’t I?

See the guy in the tank top in the last photo? That’s our new Brazilian boarder. I’ll tell you more about him next time.