This dog has had a rough week, bless her whole heart. By nature she’s what you might call skittish. Phoebe’s my darling angel who rage barks to protect us from neighbors walking down the street, UPS delivery folks, dust motes…you know, those über dangerous threats to life and liberty.
If you’ve ever had an animal try to crawl entirely up your butt while quivering then you can imagine our sweet Phoebe when smoke detectors give off those low battery beeps. Guess who had two thumbs plus a smoke detector crash this week? This lucky girl.
The beeping is bad enough, but what really drove Phoebe around the bend and over a cliff was the 48 HOURS of beeping.
I’ll start from the beginning.
As is apparently required by karma and laws of the universe, the alarm outside our bedroom door didn’t start beeping until 10:15pm. (Side note: “beeping” is far too pleasant-sounding a word for the noise that thing emits.) Not great but whatever, I could replace it. Until I checked the battery drawer and found the twenty-seven 9-volt batteries I saw there last month had mysteriously disappeared. Gone. Poof! What to do? Run to the store, that’s what to do.
Cue 10:30pm Food Lion run. Other folks are making Coronavirus grabs for water and toilet paper but I’ll just take this pack of batteries, thanks.
There was still a chance I could get to bed. I lugged the tall step stool in from our garage, replaced the battery, hit the reset button, and flinched at the horrific noise echoing in the hall. Then? Silence. Blessed silence.
Or so I thought.
I was up until 1:00am doing work for school (don’t ask) so at that point I pretty much passed out. It was okay, though, since I could sleep until nine the next day. Eight hours, man, it’s important. Which is why it’s a miracle I didn’t come up swinging when one of my delightful munchkins woke me at 7:30am to ask if I knew the beeping had started again. Of course I don’t know it’s beeping, I’M SLEEPING.
Motherhood. We’re living the dream.
Turns out BrightSide tried resetting it before he left for work. I tried the 15 second reset – may have lost a bit of hearing during that one – to no avail. That’s when I crowdsourced my Facebook friends for anything (ANYTHING!) easier than what Google was suggesting.
Nope. Turns out the detectors are older than ten years, it was probably an expiration thing, so we’d have to replace them all. Since some of you no doubt have lives to attend to I’ll try to skim through a bit:
BrightSide picked up some on the way home, those didn’t fit. Yada, yada, returned them next morning, picked up second set from Home Depot that said they were compatible but actually had a different wire connector so instead of plugging them in up there all eight would have to be rewired into the house. Yada, yada, batteries on the flashlight corroded, needed to replace headlamp, another Lowe’s run, turning off power…it was an all day project. At this point Phoebe preferred a rainy yard over coming back into this hellish house.
By the end of the day we had all new smoke detectors and a dog who was still jumping out of her skin. I had to give the poor girl Benadryl just to get her to go to bed.
I thought BrightSide was joking when he swore he heard a beep from the driveway that night. I mean, come on – no power, no battery, no way. Except it is. Here we are two days later and that evil smoke detector is STILL beeping out there. It’s troubling. What if it’s pissed we ripped it out of the ceiling? Plotting its revenge? Rallying the other seven to rush the house while we sleep??
I’ll be keeping an ear out for Phoebe’s alert.
So sorry. So sorry for Phoebe too. On post in Georgia, our home had wired smoke detectors that were in communication with one another. We slept at a hotel because they could not replace/reconnect/configure them all until the next day. The beeps chased one another and it was unholy. I feel for you.
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Ooh, that is SUPER smart. I am totally tucking that hotel thing away for the next time things blow up here. I should be shocked that it didn’t even occur to me to, you know, leave the premises. In my defense I don’t do my best thinking late at night while plugging my ears and watching my dog have a nervous breakdown.
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It’s very hard to brain around a beep.
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Oh my! Such a bad case of Murphy’s law for you.
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When it rains it pours, right?
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APPARENTLY if a smoke detector is a ‘newer’ one, trying to rip it out of the ceiling because your dog is going bat shit and is shaking so badly he might start an earthquake, or whacking it with a variety of things including, but not limited to : An umbrella, a broom, a sledgehammer (I can’t lift one of those things. so don’t know about it personally) or anything else you might grab to silence the f*ckin’ thing will only result in that REALLY LOUD screaming voice thing that says something like “DANGER! DANGER! DANGER WILL WHOEVER”…and making the whole situation worse.
It could be worse too. I’m 5’5 and a half (ish) and my ceilings are 18 feet high. I can’t reach the damned smoke detectors to save my hearing, my soul and the nerves of Ziggy who is the one freaked out by that hellish screeching beep. The one at the very tippy top of my ceiling (about twenty feet up there) died last month. I had to call my nephew who is 6 feet something, and provide him with an extension ladder to get him close enough to change it out.
I’ve suggested just disconnecting the damned thing (who the hell puts them up that high? I hate my house builder and will break his legs if I ever find him) , but am told that because the thrice cursed device is wired directly into my home, it’ll do that whole “DANGER DANGER DANGER” routine. Probably at 2:30 a.m. I have neighbors. They wouldn’t be happy.
I really miss the ‘old’ days when one could simply take the batteries out and then pull the damned thing down or leave it up there looking like it was working. Now I put Ziggy and Pudge in the car first thing because there are no smoke alarms in the garage (that I know of) and at least they’re not freaked out.
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Oh, Melanie, forgive me but I am ROLLING ON THE FLOOR LAUGHING here. Mostly because I can picture this perfectly because, well, it’s my life too. You have my deepest sympathies.
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I have a special hammer for smoke detector gone bad. One whack and it is all over. Our dogs have the same problem with them.
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Ooh, a hammer! I think that would feel wildly therapeutic.
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A twelve pound hammer. You can’t imagine how good it feels.
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It must have been a hellish night.
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Poor thing. I think it was a thousand times worse for her because at least with earplugs I eventually slept…she probably listened to that horrible noise all night long!
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I can just imagine her discomfort.
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I hope your Phoebe has better luck then the Phoebe in Friends. Meanwhile, as the temperature climbs, we’re trying to remind Maddie that we don’t own the entire street and therefore people are allowed to walk past our house.
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You’re the second person who’s mentioned a Friends episode so now I’ll have to go out searching YouTube. The walker thing kills me. We have a large front yard so it’s not like the sidewalk is right by the house — those people are, I don’t know, maybe 30 yards away?? Sheesh!
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We’re a lot closer to the street, but they don’t have to be in front of our house. They can be three doors down on the other side of the street. Maddie’s worst foe is a 80-something year-old lady with a walker!
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Poor Maddie, she’s so misunderstood. She’s just trying to keep you safe, Dan!
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Is this an episode of the sorcerer’s apprentice ? The one where the local building codes require them to be spaced out above every power outlet ? And then they multiply like rabbits. I think someone somewhere has it in for good old Phoebe. And perhaps even for you. Insert maddening laugh here… you know the one that is promptly drowned by the smoke detector alarm. Where is the Master Sorcerer when you really need him ? Napping again !
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It definitely felt like one of those maddening loop-de-loop things where the music builds and builds until your head explodes. Totally weird.
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Great post! This reminded me of the scene out of Friends and ironically Phoebe is the main character in the scene! Hope Phoebe is calmer – bless her.
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She’s had a couple of decent nights of sleep now so she seems a little less terrified. Still kind of exhausted, though, poor thing.
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Bless her!
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Your not having much luck. I think I would have buried those detectors in the garden by now.
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It’s a toss up right now whether I keep trying to ignore it or dig them out and find a dumpster behind some grocery store.
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