Never a dull moment around here. Last night, the fire alarm went off at 3:00 AM. David leaped out of bed in a single bound, which was reassuring considering my daughter was practically drowning once and he completely froze. (I had to go in the water fully dressed to save her.)
Josh, my almost four year old, slept peacefully through the shrill, piercing blare. I carried him to the front door.
There was no fire. David checked the basement and attic, but couldn't find anything that might have set it off. The police came. The fire department came. They checked for carbon monoxide but found nothing. They said an insect probably crawled into one of the units triggering the alarm. We apologized profusely for waking them in the middle of the night.
Josh got back into bed and speculated for an hour on why we say "the alarm went off" when the alarm actually went "on."
18 comments:
Too much excitement. Our fire alarm started beeping at 4:00 Sunday morning. The battery had blown. It seems our batteries go bad in the wee hours of the morning since this is the third time since we've moved in that has happened.
Ours gets rather testy when the battery is low.
So much trouble over a (probable) bug.
: )
Hey....yeah...it does go ON, not off! :)
An insect. That's perfect. That had better make it into one of your books.
Joyce: our fire alarm beeps us about low battery in the middle of the night as well.
Why do fire alarms and low battery beeps always go off in the middle of the night? I seriously think someone at the alarm company or manufacturing plant rigs these things to do it. It's like their way of getting back at the world for a thankless job.
I don't know how many times we've lost power because of some poor unsuspecting squirrel.
Glad everyone was alright though!
Wow! I'm glad there wasn't a fire and that everything was ok. Better safe than sorry! And that's so true about the alarm going on instead of off. Hmmm. Interesting.
Good point on the alarm but trust me when i say it's good your thoroughly checked things out when the alarm went off.
Oh, that is so frustrating (and exhausting)! That's happened to us before ... Jeff and I FLEW out of bed in one single bound ... and the children slept peacefully through the ear-piercing noise! Thankfully, it was nothing ... but, wow ... you definitely find out how fast you can move when that happens!
Yes, our smoke alarm battery always dies and triggers the alarm at 2am. Why 2am, people? Why?!. Better change the battery or it might go off again tonight...
was it the kind that says" fire fire. get out of the house!" that one gives me a heart attack. Not only is it a fire but sound slike someone is in your burning house too
That would totally freak me out! I can't believe insects can set off fire alarms...crazy!
Shelli, ha! Yes, it was that kind. "Fire, fire, get out of the house."
WOW not a fun night, but glad the fire alarm works. I read once that children do not wake up to the fire alarm. To combat that problem fire alarm companies are making the alarm where you can record your own face. The fire alarm then rigns outloud in your voice, "josh and jordan, fire alarm, wake up and meet at the front door" or however you program it. I saw a study on youtube and it actually worked. The kids always got up to their parents voice, but not to the alarm ringing. Strange.
We actually have one of our fire alarms down because it started beeping and wouldn't shut up even with a fresh battery.
A bug? I wonder how many of those calls they get a week??!!
Ari, thanks! The fireman told us about that too! Interesting.
I'm glad all is well, and UGH. I'm surprised you were only up for an hour afterwards; I think the adrenalin would've had me up for days.
OH my god - I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep, and now I won't sleep tonight as I"ll be contemplating why we actually DO say the alarm went "off" vs. "on".
Great.
And glad to hear all is safe!
It's Sunday 1:12am. I woke up some 15 minutes ago after the fire alarm started beeping. It beeped once, but loud enough to hear it through the whole house. We checked all over the house and fortunately didn't find anything to worry about. We noticed the little red light in the smoke detector in the hallway is blinking. No light blinking in the rest of smoke detectors.
After checking online, we came to the conclusion that it may be the battery so we'll change it later on today. I got so alarmed that I can't go back to sleep now.
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