4AM Smoke Detecting

I sometimes have trouble going to sleep, but last night was not one of them, until... chirp...chirp... chirp began at 3:53 AM in 15 second intervals. I was timing them to make sure I wasn't dreaming. Nope, I wasn't.

We'd heard the same chirping about a month ago. Scott was convinced that our cat had brought in a bird who was in hiding, but letting his/her presence be known. I discovered the "bird" was our smoke detector located near the peak of our vaulted ceiling in the TV room. My husband has a prosthetic leg, so he's not much for climbing ladders or anything else elevated for that matter. I climbed the ladder, removed the backup battery to our hard-wired smoke detector and felt very smug about having fixed the problem with a new battery. I did have some help with the analysis of the problem by visiting Ace Hardware near our home and talking to the "Helpful Hardware Man." (I believe they've quit using that jingle since Helpful Hardware Person doesn't role off the tongue quite as nicely).

The Helpful Hardware Man suggested I change all the batteries in our three smoke detectors at the same time. I didn't. As it turned out, the one I changed in the TV room didn't make a difference. It kept on chirping! My last resort was to unwire the smoke detector and get a new one. Again I was a bit prideful about the fact I managed to install the new detector without electrocuting myself. Yes, I did flip the power switch in our electrical panel. :-)

4:05 AM and I'm on a chair in the hallway replacing the battery in the smoke detector. I pressed the test button and, of course, the sound became even more annoying. Not only that, the smoke detector in my bedroom responded by chirping. They were talking to each other!

Although it probably made no sense - what does at 4 AM? - I got a pillow and held it over the hallway detector to see if almost silencing one of them would quiet the other. It didn't. I'm sure our dog, Bella, thought I'd lost my mind standing on the chair in my "lovely," somewhat ancient, purple flannel nightgown, holding a pillow over my head against the ceiling. (Scott had gone back to sleep).

Okay - last resort - unwire the smoke detectors. This time I realized you don't have to pull the wires out of the box in the ceiling and unscrew the wingy thingies. You just have to pull the plug-in out of the smoke detector box. (See, never to old to learn). Did that - on both of them. AND - they were still chirping!!!

4:20 AM: Put both in a bottom drawer in the kitchen to let them chirp all they wanted and went back to bed. Couldn't sleep because now I had visions of using the detectors to create my first UFO photo. Sheeeeeee...

So what's my grand conclusion to this story. I have no idea, but yes, the chirping in the drawer has stopped and I'll probably try reinstalling them to see what happens. I tell my memoir writing class students that "To be continued..." is not a conclusion. However, there may be exceptions.