Last week I awoke in the middle of the night to an annoying beep. I listened quietly and silence filled the air. I promptly forgot it and fell back to sleep.
The next night the annoying beep woke Jesse and I. Jesse replies, “We need to change the batteries in the smoke detector,” and we fell back to sleep.
The next day neither of us buys batteries…and the beeping becomes more frequent. We finally buy new batteries only to find that the beeping continues. It is now happening every two hours throughout the entire night. In the middle of the night, Jesse pulls the smoke detector off of the ceiling…and the beeping continues. It has now been many days without a good night’s sleep.
In replacing the batteries, we found that our smoke detectors were installed in 1991. We decided to replace them completely. In the process we determine that we need a carbon monoxide detector downstairs and wait to exchange and reinstall that smoke detector until the next evening…the beeping continues. It has now been almost a week of being awakened by the crazy beep in the middle of the night. We have all new batteries AND all new smoke detectors.
We are exasperated. Early in the process, I pulled out our carbon monoxide detector manual because I was concerned that we possibly had carbon monoxide in the house. The manual explains that a red light will blink with carbon monoxide and when the batteries need changed…only the green light was blinking. Without any other course of action, we finally changed the batteries in the carbon monoxide detector. The manual lied; the beeping stopped, and silence reigned in my home.