The Smoke Detector From Hell!

This story started a few months ago. Jan and I were minding our own business when we noticed a bloody great fire truck stop right outside the house. This is not something that happens on a day to day basis, a quick check revealed that the house was not burning down, I could not imagine what these guys were up to.

My curiosity peaked when the door bell rang, well at least they didn't attack it with their axes, so that was a good thing. It turned out they were going door to door to ensure that everyone had a working smoke detector. Well I had to admit that we did not, the battery was dead (because the stinking thing kept going off!).

Two burly firemen came inside to 'fix the issue' whipping out a brand new 9 volt battery they had it fixed in seconds, and off they went to annoy the neighbors. It soon became apparent that the new battery and the old detector were getting along like Goths and Skinheads! About every 30 seconds we would be entertained by a short, but very loud squawk!

Luckily the fire truck had only moved a couple of houses up the street, so it was pretty easy to track em down. Back they came, they whipped out a cordless drill and before you could say 911 we had a brand new smoke detector! The $0 price tag was most acceptable.

Of course all is not well with this new one, you can't boil a pan of water without it going off! The good news tho is it has a quick release mechanism, a quick twist and you can take it off and bury it underneath a couple of cushions. This is way easier than the old one where you had to extract the battery!