Whoop..whoop..whoop

My apartment building is equipped with smoke and fire detectors as required by law. They make the most horrendous racket when activated. First there is a beep, quiet briefly then increasingly loud followed by a seemingly endless series of deafening 'whoops'.

Thankfully the alarms have never gone off in response to an actual fire. At least, they haven't to my knowledge. Unfortunately though they have gone off frequently as false alarms. Too often. And at inconvenient times too. On one occasion I was in the shower when the 'whoops' started. I greeted a fireman who responded to the alarm wearing nothing but a towel around my nether regions, my body dripping wet. The fireman studied me carefully from head to toe and back again before emitting a 'mmmmm', doctor-style, and then turned on his heels. Only later did it occur to me that his close scrutiny might have been anything other than professional. Oh, the missed opportunities in my life!

So deafening are the alarms that I always assumed I awoke immediately they sounded during the night. It took a rare overnight guest recently to demonstrate that isn't necessarily the case. This poor soul tried to rouse me for several minutes, even shaking me in bed without success. Apparently there were at least several minutes of 'whooping' before I responded.

The latest false alarm was this morning. When I woke to the 'whoops' my bedside clock indicated 4.35am. The fire brigade is three blocks away and even at that time on a Sunday morning it took until 4.50am for two units to arrive, check that no fire was evident and turn off the alarms. I just lay under the bed covers trying to minimise the effect of the alarms. Then at 4.55am they started again! Five minutes later they fell silent.

It costs the Body Corporate something like $600 every time the brigade responds to a false alarm.

Mind you, if the responding personnel looked anything like my sample photo above I'd be tempted to set them off myself. Only kidding!!