When we first moved to the Lower Mainland we rented a great one-bedroom apartment on the corner of Harwood and Thurlow in the West End of Vancouver. It was a great location. I loved waking up looking at the city and I loved heading out to explore. However, the apartment had a defective smoke detector. It went off at all times of the night and day. At first we thought it was us, cooking or showering. Then we thought it was our neighbours, burning spices or smoking “something”. But the smoke alarm would go off when there was nothing cooking, no one showering, and no smells from the neighbours. It was stressful to live through, and I was so happy to leave that apartment, but not the area, I still love the area.
So now we’re here in our townhouse. The first thing I did was check out the location of the smoke detectors. The one at the entry level is right by the front door. The one in the garage is just by the door leading to house from the garage. The one on the main level is above my head as I’m writing; in the middle of the living room section of the fully open plan. The smoke detector on the bedroom level is at the top of the stairs. I am very aware of all of them. I make sure the fan over the stove is on when I cook. I make sure the bathroom fan is on and the door is closed when Dale showers in the main bathroom at the top of the stairs. I close the living room windows when we barbecue on the front deck, which is right below those windows.
Now, why am I still a little shell-shocked? Because about a month after we moved in I woke up to the sound of the smoke detector chirping. It was about 7:30 and Dale had already left for work. It beeped three times, and then repeated it twice, in the space of about two minutes. The first set of three beeps woke me up. I came downstairs to check things out in time to hear the second round. I was standing by the couch when the third set beeped. I quickly checked the rest of the house. There was nothing to cause the alarm to go off. I told Dale when he called (he usually calls me from work at least once a day) and he said the battery probably needed to be changed. He said we should just leave and see if it did it again. And one day, about two weeks later, it did it again, but this time it was during the day. Again, I told Dale.
When he came home from work that day we pulled the detector down. We had no manual so we went online to read it. There was no battery backup in it. And the reviews of the brand we have says that it chirps intermittently. Great. So Dale vacuumed it and cleaned it and replaced it. Sometimes dust can cause the detector to go off, and construction in this unit had just been completed. Problem solved? Nope.
About two weeks later, the detector did its thing, but this time at night. I woke Dale up and he listened. We checked the house, just in case. Dale promised to look after it when he got home from work the next day. Of course he went right back to sleep. I was awake most of the night.
Dale’s solution was to put the main floor detector on the entry level, and the entry level detector on the main floor. Of course, moving them required them to be reset. All of the alarms went off, twice; once when he reset the one on the main level and again when he reset the entry level one. I stood in the den area on the main floor, as far away from the detectors as I could get, with my hands over my ears when this happened. Dale figured if the detector chirped by the front door, I wouldn’t be able to hear it. And I can’t. If I’m upstairs. But I can hear it when I’m on the main level. Dale tells me to turn up the TV. So I do. And now it only chirps once, not three times repeated, but it does it most days.
Now I am hyper-vigilant when it comes to alarms or alarm-like sounds. And in this neighbourhood I hear them all the time. The sirens of emergency vehicles, back-up beeps of the garbage trucks, the screech of train car brakes, sounds on TV; even some bird sounds can ramp up my alarm anxiety.
Yesterday I was watching TV when I heard an alarm going off. I muted the TV to try to figure out where it was coming from, to make sure my neighbours’ homes were safe. They were, but the retirement complex across the street wasn’t. After the general alarm came the fire alarm. I watched as employees and residents evacuated the building. Thankfully, both of the alarms stopped after a short while and the fire department did not respond. But my anxiety level was raised for the rest of the day. What is it with me and smoke detectors and fire alarms!
I will be bringing up smoke detectors at our next strata meeting. If other detectors are chirping maybe we should replace all of them with another brand. And I’m not comfortable having a brand that doesn’t have a battery back-up. Not because we won’t be protected if the power goes out, but because when the power comes back on they will reset themselves and go off!
