I wasn't actually woken up by it this morning, but was caught by surprise by the first one just after stepping out of the shower. We were all really amused, of course, when it went off again less than half an hour later. Both times from the same room, both times without any provocation.
Really, I'm not so sure anymore how over-sensitive smoke alarms save lives - I mean, if it goes off twice a week, usually due to burnt toast or something, and the fire brigade drives here in two huge trucks every time, that's got a certain comedy value I suppose, but no one really takes it seriously anymore. I keep saying, one day, there will be a fire, and we'll all choke/burn to death because we take our time leaving the house, and don't actually get away from it even then, but just crowd around the front door.
My suggestion for a slightly more sensible arrangement would be to have a smoke detector in each room that starts making noise when it detects anything, and if it's still sensing smoke a minute or two later (or if no one has pushed a 'false alarm' button on it) it automatically alerts the fire brigade. But automatically calling them out every time someone uses hairspray or burns their breakfast is just silly. |
