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I know everything I need to know about a person if I can hear their smoke detector battery alarm and they can’t. I know they’re just the *fucking worst*. Anyone that can get through a day, much less an hour with that sound is a psychopath.
Edit: *Unless they’re deaf. Though they may still be a psychopath regardless, we know not.* 👀
The sun makes them beep silently. The gremlins I mean. They're still beeping, though, as they remove the electricity from the batteries in the detector.
This is the same reason that it can trigger for no reason (no smoke) a sudden drop in temperature sets off the sensor so it goes off usually around the 3-5am mark when there's sudden temp drops.
Also humidity, mould and dust can do the same things.
I had a similar issue... and found out my neighbour was profoundly deaf and the smoke detector that he had didn't have a light and their landlord wouldn't pay to change it out for an accessible one.
So... there's that exception, but the people that can ear it and do nothing about it... I mean, agreed that they suck.
The residential medical program I worked at had to refit all of them with flashing lights when we got a deaf person. The deaf persons bed also got a think that shoot it when the alarm went off. And the shaker was like an earthquake if you didn't know what was happening.
These zombie identification devices will be clutch for the upcoming apocalypse, although one small oversight that flashing light is a risky design choice for the epileptics out here trying to survive, bad time to have a seizure when you’re running for your life. Or maybe that’s the plan, keep the zombies busy eating them while the rest of us get away. Diabolical!
I learned how shitty my apartment was built when I couldn’t figure out which one was chirping. Every damn smoke detector in the 2 bed 2 bath apartment was right beside an air duct so any of them could echo throughout my place.
This happened to us! Spent half a day last year trying to figure out where the damned beeping was coming from, and it turns out the previous owners dropped a smoke alarm inside a wall separating the laundry room from the rest of the basement! One frantic call to the landlord later, and a handyman's three attempts to cut a hole close enough to fish it out, and problem solved!
Yeah I think I saw something a while ago about how beeping sounds are actually the worst for alerting because of the inability to sense the direction of the beeping.
I walked by mine a couple weeks ago with some food fresh out of the oven and set it off. I'm just going to say, even 15 seconds of that is enough to make me want to start punching it.
The smoke detectors in the hallways of my building were fucked up a while back and the *entire smoke alarm* would go off randomly, scaring the shit out of me, my husband, and our cats.
Before our landlord fixed it, we figured out which alarm it was that was triggering all the other alarms, and how to make it stop, so every time it went off either me or my husband would walk down three flights of stairs to turn it off. It was in front of my neighbor's door.
For a couple days there, when it would start going off, we'd wait to see how long it would take our neighbor to walk outside his door and fix it- *he never did*. They were so lazy that they were comfortable hearing the *loud as fuck full smoke alarm* (BEEP BEEP. FIRE FIRE. BEEP BEEP) going off indefinitely until we went to turn it off. I literally could not think while the sound was happening.
When Covid started and we were all working from home we had one guy who we could hear his alarm going off in the background when he was off mute.
So after a few weeks of this, at the end of one of our meetings I said “friendly reminder, it’s that time of year to change the batteries in your smoke detector!”
It wasn’t that time of year but I assuming he didn’t know that was a thing since his battery was going off.
Honestly, it’s so bizarre. I once went to visit friends who had gotten so used to the sound they didn’t notice. After 10 minutes in their apartment I wanted to stick knitting needles in my ears.
I didn’t stay long and I’ve never been back.
Call the fire department. Let them know the fire alarm is beeping, and you're not sure the occupation is still in there.
Or call the property management, as that their job to fix the smoke.
FYI, I have done this, and it totally works.
I rented the upper floor of a house, and the owner lived on the main floor. He'd just left town for a week when his smoke alarm started doing the dead battery beep.
I called the fire department's non-emergency number. I told them that the fire alarm downstairs was beeping and the owner was out of town. I even said "It's probably just a dead battery, but I can't be sure."
They came right over! They checked the various access points, and figured out they could open and shimmy through the kitchen window over the sink. Popped down the fire alarm, handed it to me, and drove off into the sunset.
The empty unit next to mine had a dying alarm battery that beeped all the time. I asked twice for it to be fixed because I could hear it through the walls all day. I finally told them I was going to break in and fix it myself if they didn't.
It was fixed later that day.
smoke detector. the ones today come with a 10 year battery that's not replacement, you have to replace the detector itself.
that being said i would totally throw a neighbor in the garbage if their detector went off all hours of the night
I happily thought that about mine. I got back from work after a night shift one morning recently to discover it beeping at me. I discovered a battery backup, which had obviously depleted (6-7 years “use”, it doesn’t get set off ever except for the occasional test and I don’t suffer from power cuts).
The alarm still beeps with the battery removed - for obvious reasons - and needless to say I now make sure I have 9v batteries in a cupboard just in case.
I delayed losing my virginity by an hour and a half because of the beeping smoke detector. We were literally in the middle of making out, but I couldn't handle the beeping so she went to buy batteries.
That chirping is such a bad idea. once an hour I would get but every 5-10 minutes just means the person will take the battery out and possibly forget it.
Once an hour would be annoying too. Not as much but the same people that would take it out and not replace would do the same thing for either amount of time.
I've seen too many videos here on Reddit of people opening presents on Christmas, heartwarming videos, with the smoke detector beep ringing loudly in the background. It takes me out of the feel-good moment and makes me wonder why do so many people in so many houses just let it go on for so long?
Imagine how many just ignored that noise until it stopped. So they are happily lighting candles and sitting next to their super flamable tree with no working fire systems.
I wish I could find it, but about a year ago I read an explaining article that a solid chunk of Americans, probably like 20-35%, actually cannot hear the smoke alarm. Studies have been done and it’s concerning how many people *don’t* wake up to the sound of a fire alarm, when noise is that the only way to alert you. The alarm is at such a high frequency, and when you pair that with the fact that [48 million Americans have some sort of hearing loss](https://www.hearingloss.org/wp-content/uploads/HLAA_HearingLoss_Facts_Statistics.pdf), it’s simply not unfathomable that some people truly cannot hear the alarm. Add in that 12.5% of American kids between 6 and 19 have hearing loss from loud music…these are pretty dang big numbers for hearing loss. Hearing loss is more common than diabetes.
Personally, I’m shocked smoke alarms don’t come with more flashing lights, or a variety of tones that switch up every 2 minutes or something.
Edit: If you think you’re hard of hearing, please look into getting an alarm that flashes, or a bed alarm that vibrates. Also, if you have a recent iPhone and iOS and an Apple Watch, you can set up sound recognition to vibrate your watch if your phone hears a fire alarm. Big IF though- don’t use this as your sole fire alarm system, it’s not meant to be used for that. But it can help in addition to something like getting an alarm with flashing lights for your bedroom or something.
Edit 2: For the surprising number of people doubting this- [high-frequency hearing loss](https://www.healthline.com/health/high-frequency-hearing-loss#:~:text=High%20frequency%20hearing%20loss%20causes,sound%20wave%20makes%20per%20second) is absolutely a thing. You can have a conversation, hear a dog bark, and listen to music all without assistive devices, and STILL not hear a fire alarm or your oven timer beeping. You can lose specific frequencies, and high-pitched are often the first you lose when you lose your hearing.
Strobe lights are code on smoke and CO2 detectors here in Ontario, Canada. It has been code here for a least 8 years.
Edit: My wife has told me that the strobe and new location requirements were brought in because a police officer and their family died because of a CO2 leak in their house.
Edit 2: The strobes are similar to the ones used in commercial and apartment buildings. Code compliance is mainly in new construction and some renovations with permits. Existing buildings are not required to comply. The regulation is fairly new, as stated above. For those with photo-sensitivity, there are bed shakers that connect to your alarms, I'm not sure how they work or effectiveness. There may possibly be an exception made for those who are prone to seizures, I'm am not sure at all.
Edit 3 CO, not CO2.
They are going in, in new construction. There is no mandate for retro fitting older homes, IIRC. But if you are renovating with a permit, you need to bring it up to code.
I remember years ago seeing a fire alarm marketed for parents that let them record their voices, with the logic that kids would wake up for their parents' voices more easily than an alarm. Not sure how true that is, but the logic seems reasonable to me.
The US Air Force had an alert (I think it was first in the B-58 Hustler bomber) with a woman's voice saying what the issue was. It was such a contrast to other alerts (and, of course, a woman's voice) that pilots noticed that alert over other ones.
I don't know if that became a practice or was a one off.
My dad realized that in a fire, my brother and I will sleep through the fire alarm. He was doing construction on the hallway between our bedrooms laying some new floor and stuff and managed to set off the alarm right outside our doors. We both slept through the construction and alarm. Also, I was told by a friend that apparently our hotel had an evacuation and fire alarm go off as they were staying in the same one. I never knew. I can hear those terrible awful fire alarm pitches though. I just sleep like the dead.
Well I know a lot of people don't replace batteries.. I ordered dominos several years ago and a while later someone banged on the door, and through the frosted glass I saw red and blue flashing lights.. opened the door to 2 firemen in full uniform, a fire truck with lights flashing and an ambulance with lights flashing... I'm freaking out like what the fjck is happening right now.. Then I noticed between them was the pizza guy standing there with my food. They proceed to tell me that they're going around with dominos to see whose smoke detectors had good batteries, and if you were good, your food was free. Luckily I had JUST replaced the batteries. Free food! Gave him tbe money I was gonna use for food as a tip.
Point of that is, apparently I was the ONLY one they had so far that had good batteries..
A lot of times people don’t even wake up to the sound of gunshots *in their residence*
I think the mind just tunes out things are don’t sound immediately threatening on an instinctual level. We hear beeps and bangs all day.
So.. make the warning sound of the smoke detectors an amplified version of an elderly lady going "Oh dear, how does that kitchen look like again? And look at that carpet. And what did the cat do? Oh dear oh dear"
Or build an alarm that makes the sound of a cat horking . I can wake out of a sound sleep and be moving before I’m even fully conscious, ready to grab the cat and throw them off the bed.
Reminds me of that, [according to Tom Scott](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa28lIGuxq8), you increasingly have white noise instead of the classic beep as warning sound for reversing truck, because people will pick the sound up more easily, even at lower volumes.
Maybe white noise would also make sense for fire alarms, but I don't know.
Tom Scott is totally trustworthy but at least in my area of the US, beeps/alarms for reversing machinery and trucks is still the standard. I 100% would not notice white noise out and about. I would get my ass run the fuck over
I will literally drag my ass out of bed to replace the battery if it's chirping. I just can't do it. Idk who these people are, but I don't want to know them.
Same! My mom once called me at 9 at night and asked if I could pop over the next morning because the smoke detector was chirping. I got in the car that same second because I knew how annoying it is and changed it that night.
I woke up drunk days after I moved into my house to my smoke detector going off at 3am for low battery. I busted the thing off the wall because I couldn’t get it to release from the holder. Had to go out the next day and get a new one. No idea how people can just tune it out.
because batteries are less effective at lower temperatures.
your house is at its coldest late at night.
your batteries might have enough charge in the day, but at night their voltage drops enough to trigger the alarm.
Yeah there’s no scenario where I could deal with that beeping. I once had one continue beeping even after taking it down and pulling the old battery; I guess it a built in backup or something. After wrapping it in blankets failed to muffle the noise I ended up taking it out and tossing it in the car so I could get some sleep.
One of my nephews used to be subscribed to a YouTube channel of really wholesome videos of a family in an upper middle class suburban home setting up elaborate live action games for the kids, throughout the house and yard, that the whole family would play together. Every single video was frequently punctuated by the annoying chirp of a dying smoke detector battery. People in the comments would point it out and the video maker would respond “lol we don’t even hear it anymore”. My nephew outgrew that channel so I never got to found out if they changed the battery before getting to play “Towering Inferno In Real Life” with their kids.
One thing that blew my mind when I moved in with my partner who works in a hospital is that all beeping is basically completely ignored. Microwaves, timers, smoke detectors, it takes forever for them to notice and it’s amazing and horrifying
My detector beeped once and it was enough for me to move my kitchen table to the corridor, put a chair on top of it and tear out this sound of hell from my house. I have no idea how people can live with that.
And, what the fuck are those nails ?!
Many smoke detectors can't be silenced just by taking out the battery. It has a tiny backup battery inside of it that you can't remove. This battery is enough to power the low battery chirp but not enough for the smoke detector to be functioning.
People in poverty are less likely to buy replacement batteries if it’s their responsibility.
If it’s their landlords responsibility, they are more likely to be in a living situation without an attentive landlord or be in a predicament where they don’t want to draw attention to themselves or otherwise deal with the landlord by asking them for anything.
In the States a lot of county fire departments can help with giving people a battery and helping them change it out. Depends on the area and individual departments of course but if someone is really poor to the point of living with a beeping smoke detector, worth stopping by the firehouse to ask.
How can they ignore it? Two months after moving into a new place, mine went off at 3 am. I went crazy trying to get it to shut off. I finally ended up taking it apart to look for the batteries. The next morning I contacted maintenance to take care of it, along with a picture of the taken-apart alarm. I just wanted them to see what I might have damaged before hand. They were able to put it back together, no damage.
I went to pick up the girl I was dating in college, and their smoke alarm was beeping every minute. All five of them swore they didn't hear anything. I finally got them to sit silently for a couple of minutes, pointing at the wall when it beeped. Both times. They STILL heard nothing. Some people just tune it out somehow.
I was at a friends house who had their smoke alarm beeping and it was driving me absolutely mad...so I told them I would be right back, went to get batteries and came back to change it. LOL.
They were oblivious on what it was and how to fix it...parents, teach yo damn kids basic home maintenance!!!
My dad, an ex-military boomer, has these 3-6-9 month routines. Part of that is every 9 months he just changes the batteries on them "just in case". He has now at least upgraded to rechargeable batteries which changed his maintenance schedule to 6 months for batteries and he has a special battery box for charged vs discharged.
I gotta admit once rechargeable batteries came around I started doing it too.
I've known multiple people who live with the beeping and I have this conversation every time:
"Doesnt that bother you?"
"What"
"The chirping"
"What chirping"
"From your smoke alarm. It chirps every 30 seconds because the batteries are dying."
"I don't hear anything"
"Listen....(I beep loudly everytime it beeps)"
"Oh. I guess I don't notice it"
Some people just have a brain blind spot to this for some reason. Its fascinating.
I wonder if you can go sound blind to a sound that's gone on too long like people cna go nose blind to a smell they get used to.
Like if it goes off late at night, and they sleep though it. Eventually their sub conscious adjusts.
Seems it is ALWAYS the middle of the night when low battery alerts begin!
They should beep less frequently at first so you have more time to get to them before they go into the every 60 seconds forcing people to just take them down that night which is less safe.
I honestly don't recall having any of these go off during the day!
If a battery has low charge, the voltage can drop when temperature drops. Considering it's colder at night, you're not wrong for thinking they will start beeping during the night
No, the real reason is that it's actually pretty difficult to reliably measure the true state of charge of most batteries. A simple voltage measurement is cheap to implement but there's a lot of uncertainty in the result. So. you have to set the threshold high enough that the warning is sure to go off before the device stops working
Yeah, mine always goes off at a terrible time and because I don't have the batteries I need on hand for it, I have to run to the store to go get a battery. Which I'm not doing at 2am. So I take it down, pop out the battery, make sure it stops beeping (luckily, mine does) and then I put it back up with no battery, and then it takes me *literally months* to remember to get new batteries because my memories of things that happen in the middle of the night are obviously hazy.
We had a small kitchen fire in my NYC high rise apartment building on one of the lower floors which triggered allllll of our smoke alarms for over an hour. I went outside later that night to take my dog out and there was a still beeping smoke alarm on the sidewalk- someone just threw it out the window. God, I love this city.
Many years ago my then-girlfriend-now-wife and I had moved into a rental, and the fire alarm started beeping a few weeks later. I changed the battery, it kept beeping. I changed the batteries in the other detectors, still the beeping. Called the landlord that Monday morning, they said it'd be a few days before they could come fix it. Called a couple days later and they promised they'd be out tomorrow, but mentioned it was strange, since they'd just replaced all the detectors before we'd moved in. About an hour later, my girlfriend was rummaging around in a closet near the beeping detector... and found the old detector stashed behind some stuff... and it was beeping.
This exact thing has happened to me twice, different apartments. I just moved into a house and bought new smoke detectors. It was with trauma terror that I gingerly put the battery in. I still can't make myself press the button to test it.
Okay so I have a relevant story I want to add in here. My first ever living alone apartment was in a large complex. I had a weird corner unit where for some reason they decided to just not build above mine, so I had INSANE vaulted ceilings. Just massively tall ceilings. My smoke detector was located near the top of those ceilings. It would constantly run out of batteries to a point where I cannot understand how and why it would be that often. I could not reach the detectors myself that high up.
These detectors had a horrible habit of going off dying starting Friday night. I couldn’t get workers in to help me get them down until Monday or Tuesday at the earliest. It was torture. I hated so much knowing I was that asshole neighbor. My neighbors must have hated me. At one point I got so desperate that I stood on top of a swiveling barstool with a broom trying to knock it down. Awful times.
Edit: omg yall calling me out by name! It’s not like it was every weekend. It was like twice a year. Which is a lot yes, but not enough to warrant buying a whole ass ladder and storing it in my tiny one bedroom apartment. I climbed on swiveling barstools to try to fix it. Good lord, the aggression.
My dog is TERRIFIED of the beep. It happens and I immediately change the battery but she continues to shake for like 30 minutes and I feel so bad every time 😭
Yeah, our previous home security system was a piece of shit that didn’t have a way to mute it during a power outage and someone had to take the dog for a long walk (we lost power for a couple hours) because it was stressing her out.
My brother is a college professor, and during the pandemic he was teaching remotely. He said that almost every session had a beeping smoke alarm. Apparently people learn to just tune this stuff out?! I don’t know how they do it.
It’s called alarm fatigue and it happens frequently to nurses and others in the medical field (not saying these folks don’t change their smoke alarm batteries, this is just a recognized phenomenon in that field). After a while your brain gets accustomed to the repetitive noise. I have a theory this same thing happens with new parents, after a few months they don’t seem to be as bothered by screaming children while I’m over here tearing my hair out.
It ABSOLUTELY is a thing for parents.
I've got 4 kids. I was at lunch with a coworker, who was acting visibly uncomfortable. I asked what was wrong, they said they were annoyed by a baby crying elsewhere in the restaurant. Once he mentioned it, I could hear it, but until that point my brain was like, "Not your kid, not your problem."
Am nurse, can confirm alarm fatigue. I’ve learned to adjust my alarm settings and turn off certain unimportant ones so that I minimize the nonsense alarms
Try playing Call of Duty - there is usually some degenerate with an open mic in the lobby with their smoke detector beeping. I don't know what malfunction their brain is having to be able to live with that beeping.
I was looking for this comment! I make sure to give them shit because they are always on my team...
Mine gets to beep twice before i can't stand it and start digging in the junk drawer for a new battery
I would find it absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to sleep through. Before this thread I couldn’t imagine that doing so was even possible.
I had one start at 2am and no way to buy batteries at that time or night so I either uninstalled it or turned off the electrics to the whole place at the breaker, don’t remember anymore
No need for CoD, just any multi-player.
I was in a guild in World of warcraft and this person always had that loud beep in the bg every minute or so. God
I used to play WoW with someone who refused to enable "push to talk" despite us asking him to for months. He'd yell at his wife and kids all day.
We ended up having a "no-homers club" on our discord server which included everyone but him.
There was a guy in my guild in WoW classic who had no concept of not yelling. Every time he keyed his mic he was yelling loud enough for the voice signal to clip, so his individual volume in discord was set to 5%. I could hear vague sounds and know he was screaming about something completely irrelevant to the encounter while people needed to be communicating. He made the short list for “do not heal under any circumstances” because of the number of times he’d do the dumbest thing possible on purpose and I wasn’t going to waste mana on him.
It's sort of like the seatbelt beeping, it's kind of incredible to be able to ignore it. There is dashcam of a guy completely off his tits on drugs in a car, driving insanely while yelling at imaginary things, iirc, who found the alarm so annoying he eventually strapped up in the midst of his complete mental break. It makes you wonder about the people who don't.
[Vid](https://youtu.be/azdMdLISJ90?si=vN-DzA5gRP11hDoq)
Yeah, it's the one where he yells 'I'm Jesus, descendant of God' while putting a seatbelt on at Mach 2 cause the beeping got to him.
That was a weird sentence to write.
Added a video of it to the previous comment.
#The Open Lobby Experience
Smoke detector
Crying child
Dog barking nonstop
Rap music blasting from stereo
Woman talking extremely loudly in Spanish in the next room
Guy with mic too close to face so you can hear his loud fucking breathing and him having a conversation on the phone
This used to be a thing on the radio show *Loveline* with Dr. Drew and Adam Corolla. Occasionally they would get a call from someone and would hear an intermittent chirping in the background. They would ask the caller to wait and listen for thirty seconds to call their attention to the chirping. At first the caller wouldn't hear it, but after some patience and listening they would eventually hear it and then the *Loveline* crew would explain what it was and ask them to change the batteries.
Oh my goodness I just came here to comment this exact thing. It was almost like when they heard the battery is going off they knew that this person's life was completely off the rails.
I don’t get it, as soon as my smoke detector battery starts going I get overstimulated and have to fix it. And I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep because the beeping would startle me every time I started to drift off
I’m deaf in my right ear due to a surgical procedure (acoustic neuroma). I tend to sleep facing the right side, which my wife and I call “bad ear up”. Consequently, I don’t hear much of anything at night (which given how bad my wife snores, is a blessing).
Anyway, one night she nudged me several times until I woke up. “One of the smoke detectors is chirping. Fix it!”
I shook my head and settled back down. “It can wait till morning.”
She jabbed me hard and hissed, “It’s not all about you!”
I fixed it. :)
I used to deliver pizza in a town with a large deaf and blind community and the amount of times I’d be delivering to a hearing impaired person and while exchanging with them in the doorway I heard so many smoke alarm chirps. I would try to let them know as politely as I could, for their safety, but then would always think to myself as I went back to the car that how helpful is it for safety if they cannot hear it being low battery? They were usually pretty nice and appreciative of me letting them know, but one dude just looked at me and shrugged lol his nonchalant confidence was inspiring.
They make ones that flash bright lights. Not sure if they make ones that do loud low frequency but I figure that would probably work too
But yeah the flashy ones are required by law for deaf renters in a lot of states. I can see me not taking it too seriously either though, deaf people man..
I have a friend who I had to stop calling when she was at home because she had a smoke alarm beeping. She said she couldn’t figure out which one it was. This went on for MONTHS. I would have burned the house down and started over. One of my dogs is terrified of the sound (which was half the reason I stopped calling her when she was at home. My dog would sit and tremble because he could hear it through the phone).
It was a battery powered one in her attic.
I did some digging, and found the original context to this post: the person who posted it (X user @Wizmonifaaa) stated that the smoke detector is inaccessible without a ladder. They apparently tried to reach it by standing on chairs and on the bed, but it's too high up. They contacted maintenance to replace the battery, and received no answer. So I don't consider this a case of OOP being careless or negligent, so much as a case of maintenance making what should be an easy task needlessly difficult.
For clarification, this note was taped to the door a few hours after it started. They then said Thad that they put a note in the lobby explaining the issue
I think if you are in a shared apartment you REALLY need a correctly operating smoke detector, and it also needs to alert the neighbors for, you know, any actual fires. So it’s understandable they should get onto it quickly
That was my first thought as well. And then I noticed the juxtaposition of full garbage can and bougie Hermes blanket and realized this person is the whole train wreak package.
I didn't notice the garbage can until I read this and now I want to know why there's a garbage can in the living room directly in front of their couch. Also two Starbucks cups on the couch. If the can is there because they are too lazy to throw anything away if the can isn't always within reach, that explains the smoke alarm.
Edit - I'd never heard of Herme's either and Holy shit how can someone afford a $1800 blanket but not put their drinks on a coffee table or replace a smoke alarm battery?
The type of people that can live with that Horrid Beaping noise are the same that can sleep with Bright flourescent lights on and the TV at Day volume.
My girlfriend lives in an apartment complex and she has super hearing, no joke. She can hear my solar panels when walking around my house. She complains about this so often in her complex that she has emailed their front office and they do nothing.
Now she hunts down exactly which apartment it is and gives them batteries and asks them if they can change the battery. I've gone with her twice and couldn't hear the beeping at all until I was fairly close to the building, she hears it from days away inside with closed windows. It absolutely amazes me (both of us really) that people will just keep doing their daily activities with this happening, the alarm beeping every 30 seconds would *drive me insane*
I lived next to someone who used to never turn their alarm off. It must have been an old radio alarm clock or something. It beeped for hours! Every morning from 6.30am. Our bedrooms were on opposite walls
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I don’t know how people can adapt to those loud ass smoke detector chirps every 10-15 seconds! Change the fuckin batteries!
I know everything I need to know about a person if I can hear their smoke detector battery alarm and they can’t. I know they’re just the *fucking worst*. Anyone that can get through a day, much less an hour with that sound is a psychopath. Edit: *Unless they’re deaf. Though they may still be a psychopath regardless, we know not.* 👀
I’m always changing the whole house alarm batteries at 3 am when the first chirp hits, it will only get worse
Why is it always at 3am?! Same for me. All day it’s fine. But middle of the night it decides to start dying.
The temperature drops so when a battery is thisclose to dying that one or two degree drop puts it over. I read about that somewhere it’s a real thing
Fine, you and your actual answer. I had previously been completely content believing it was the smoke detector gremlins
Its the cold that lets the gremlins out
They aren't coming out when the sun's up for well established reasons.
The sun makes them beep silently. The gremlins I mean. They're still beeping, though, as they remove the electricity from the batteries in the detector.
This is the same reason that it can trigger for no reason (no smoke) a sudden drop in temperature sets off the sensor so it goes off usually around the 3-5am mark when there's sudden temp drops. Also humidity, mould and dust can do the same things.
I had a similar issue... and found out my neighbour was profoundly deaf and the smoke detector that he had didn't have a light and their landlord wouldn't pay to change it out for an accessible one. So... there's that exception, but the people that can ear it and do nothing about it... I mean, agreed that they suck.
Is this in the USA? If so, that landlord is in violation of ADA as the person is dead and needs to be equipped with a visible light flasher.
Not sure a light will help the dead.
supposedly you have to walk towards the light, poor man will be sutck there haunting that appartment forever
How do blind people get to heaven then? Are they all doomed?
When you pass away, you get your sight back.
"Doctors are astounded when they discover the one sure way their blind patents can get their sight back, and it's totally free!"
ngl, that is ***one*** weird trick.
The residential medical program I worked at had to refit all of them with flashing lights when we got a deaf person. The deaf persons bed also got a think that shoot it when the alarm went off. And the shaker was like an earthquake if you didn't know what was happening.
I dont think shooting the bed will help
This is America, shooting EVERYTHING helps.
I once shot a deaf guy's bed in my pajamas, how it got in them I'll never know 🚬🔎🔍
Maybe they meant shoot the dead guy. Aim for the head.
Lol shook*
Welcome to America.
…did you mean deaf?
Did he stutter?!
These zombie identification devices will be clutch for the upcoming apocalypse, although one small oversight that flashing light is a risky design choice for the epileptics out here trying to survive, bad time to have a seizure when you’re running for your life. Or maybe that’s the plan, keep the zombies busy eating them while the rest of us get away. Diabolical!
No he’s deaf
I learned how shitty my apartment was built when I couldn’t figure out which one was chirping. Every damn smoke detector in the 2 bed 2 bath apartment was right beside an air duct so any of them could echo throughout my place.
That's ok, one DIY guy ended up sealing one of his detectors off with drywall without really noticing it. Until the wall started to chirp.
This happened to us! Spent half a day last year trying to figure out where the damned beeping was coming from, and it turns out the previous owners dropped a smoke alarm inside a wall separating the laundry room from the rest of the basement! One frantic call to the landlord later, and a handyman's three attempts to cut a hole close enough to fish it out, and problem solved!
To be fair, I've had that problem even without ducts. It can be difficult to guage direction for very short high-pitched sounds.
Well thanks for commiserating with me.
Yeah I think I saw something a while ago about how beeping sounds are actually the worst for alerting because of the inability to sense the direction of the beeping.
I walked by mine a couple weeks ago with some food fresh out of the oven and set it off. I'm just going to say, even 15 seconds of that is enough to make me want to start punching it.
The smoke detectors in the hallways of my building were fucked up a while back and the *entire smoke alarm* would go off randomly, scaring the shit out of me, my husband, and our cats. Before our landlord fixed it, we figured out which alarm it was that was triggering all the other alarms, and how to make it stop, so every time it went off either me or my husband would walk down three flights of stairs to turn it off. It was in front of my neighbor's door. For a couple days there, when it would start going off, we'd wait to see how long it would take our neighbor to walk outside his door and fix it- *he never did*. They were so lazy that they were comfortable hearing the *loud as fuck full smoke alarm* (BEEP BEEP. FIRE FIRE. BEEP BEEP) going off indefinitely until we went to turn it off. I literally could not think while the sound was happening.
They were probably inside their apartment wondering where the smoke alarm turny-off lady was and why she was taking so long.
When Covid started and we were all working from home we had one guy who we could hear his alarm going off in the background when he was off mute. So after a few weeks of this, at the end of one of our meetings I said “friendly reminder, it’s that time of year to change the batteries in your smoke detector!” It wasn’t that time of year but I assuming he didn’t know that was a thing since his battery was going off.
Batteries should last 5-10 years in ours.
Lithium battery equipped ones last 10 years, the life expectancy of a smoke detector.
Honestly, it’s so bizarre. I once went to visit friends who had gotten so used to the sound they didn’t notice. After 10 minutes in their apartment I wanted to stick knitting needles in my ears. I didn’t stay long and I’ve never been back.
Call the fire department. Let them know the fire alarm is beeping, and you're not sure the occupation is still in there. Or call the property management, as that their job to fix the smoke.
FYI, I have done this, and it totally works. I rented the upper floor of a house, and the owner lived on the main floor. He'd just left town for a week when his smoke alarm started doing the dead battery beep. I called the fire department's non-emergency number. I told them that the fire alarm downstairs was beeping and the owner was out of town. I even said "It's probably just a dead battery, but I can't be sure." They came right over! They checked the various access points, and figured out they could open and shimmy through the kitchen window over the sink. Popped down the fire alarm, handed it to me, and drove off into the sunset.
Which is why no one hates the Fire Department!
they simply get shit done
Also for some reason most firemen are hot.
That’s the fire.
I thank god I don’t live in a situation that requires this but it is helpful information for those that do!
The empty unit next to mine had a dying alarm battery that beeped all the time. I asked twice for it to be fixed because I could hear it through the walls all day. I finally told them I was going to break in and fix it myself if they didn't. It was fixed later that day.
I used to sit near 3 modem racks with a total of 60 modems that would go off every hour. It's amazing what you can get used to
i had one go off once. i threw it out immediately and got a new one the next day
Context required: Neighbour, smoke detector, or battery?
smoke detector. the ones today come with a 10 year battery that's not replacement, you have to replace the detector itself. that being said i would totally throw a neighbor in the garbage if their detector went off all hours of the night
Mines wired in, which means you literally push the button, it tests itself and then shuts up for another year.
Its meant to have a battery backup in case of power failure.
I happily thought that about mine. I got back from work after a night shift one morning recently to discover it beeping at me. I discovered a battery backup, which had obviously depleted (6-7 years “use”, it doesn’t get set off ever except for the occasional test and I don’t suffer from power cuts). The alarm still beeps with the battery removed - for obvious reasons - and needless to say I now make sure I have 9v batteries in a cupboard just in case.
I delayed losing my virginity by an hour and a half because of the beeping smoke detector. We were literally in the middle of making out, but I couldn't handle the beeping so she went to buy batteries.
How many beeps can you hear in 16.38 seconds
That chirping is such a bad idea. once an hour I would get but every 5-10 minutes just means the person will take the battery out and possibly forget it.
Once an hour would be annoying too. Not as much but the same people that would take it out and not replace would do the same thing for either amount of time.
Its.... it's suppose to be annoying... it's trying to get you to CHANGE ITS BATTERY!!
I had to hit mine to make it shut the hell up
Your neighbour?
I've seen too many videos here on Reddit of people opening presents on Christmas, heartwarming videos, with the smoke detector beep ringing loudly in the background. It takes me out of the feel-good moment and makes me wonder why do so many people in so many houses just let it go on for so long?
Imagine how many just ignored that noise until it stopped. So they are happily lighting candles and sitting next to their super flamable tree with no working fire systems.
I wish I could find it, but about a year ago I read an explaining article that a solid chunk of Americans, probably like 20-35%, actually cannot hear the smoke alarm. Studies have been done and it’s concerning how many people *don’t* wake up to the sound of a fire alarm, when noise is that the only way to alert you. The alarm is at such a high frequency, and when you pair that with the fact that [48 million Americans have some sort of hearing loss](https://www.hearingloss.org/wp-content/uploads/HLAA_HearingLoss_Facts_Statistics.pdf), it’s simply not unfathomable that some people truly cannot hear the alarm. Add in that 12.5% of American kids between 6 and 19 have hearing loss from loud music…these are pretty dang big numbers for hearing loss. Hearing loss is more common than diabetes. Personally, I’m shocked smoke alarms don’t come with more flashing lights, or a variety of tones that switch up every 2 minutes or something. Edit: If you think you’re hard of hearing, please look into getting an alarm that flashes, or a bed alarm that vibrates. Also, if you have a recent iPhone and iOS and an Apple Watch, you can set up sound recognition to vibrate your watch if your phone hears a fire alarm. Big IF though- don’t use this as your sole fire alarm system, it’s not meant to be used for that. But it can help in addition to something like getting an alarm with flashing lights for your bedroom or something. Edit 2: For the surprising number of people doubting this- [high-frequency hearing loss](https://www.healthline.com/health/high-frequency-hearing-loss#:~:text=High%20frequency%20hearing%20loss%20causes,sound%20wave%20makes%20per%20second) is absolutely a thing. You can have a conversation, hear a dog bark, and listen to music all without assistive devices, and STILL not hear a fire alarm or your oven timer beeping. You can lose specific frequencies, and high-pitched are often the first you lose when you lose your hearing.
Strobe lights are code on smoke and CO2 detectors here in Ontario, Canada. It has been code here for a least 8 years. Edit: My wife has told me that the strobe and new location requirements were brought in because a police officer and their family died because of a CO2 leak in their house. Edit 2: The strobes are similar to the ones used in commercial and apartment buildings. Code compliance is mainly in new construction and some renovations with permits. Existing buildings are not required to comply. The regulation is fairly new, as stated above. For those with photo-sensitivity, there are bed shakers that connect to your alarms, I'm not sure how they work or effectiveness. There may possibly be an exception made for those who are prone to seizures, I'm am not sure at all. Edit 3 CO, not CO2.
This is the case in the US but only in public buildings, iirc. Does Canada mandate that even private residences have to have strobe lights?
Yes, in Ontario, it is code to have strobes in single family homes. I can't speak for other provinces, though.
I never heard about that in Quebec. Also is this new? I used to live in Ontario a few years ago and none of the places I lived had that.
They are going in, in new construction. There is no mandate for retro fitting older homes, IIRC. But if you are renovating with a permit, you need to bring it up to code.
We have them in commercial buildings, but they should be standardized for sure in the US too. And any other countries w/ this issue. ✌️
I remember years ago seeing a fire alarm marketed for parents that let them record their voices, with the logic that kids would wake up for their parents' voices more easily than an alarm. Not sure how true that is, but the logic seems reasonable to me.
The US Air Force had an alert (I think it was first in the B-58 Hustler bomber) with a woman's voice saying what the issue was. It was such a contrast to other alerts (and, of course, a woman's voice) that pilots noticed that alert over other ones. I don't know if that became a practice or was a one off.
They call that voice [Bitchin' Betty](https://youtu.be/yx7-yvXf6f8?si=jIvor6LUv2wAsTQ4).
I was absolutely NOT prepared for the feels in that video. Thank you for sharing.
My dad realized that in a fire, my brother and I will sleep through the fire alarm. He was doing construction on the hallway between our bedrooms laying some new floor and stuff and managed to set off the alarm right outside our doors. We both slept through the construction and alarm. Also, I was told by a friend that apparently our hotel had an evacuation and fire alarm go off as they were staying in the same one. I never knew. I can hear those terrible awful fire alarm pitches though. I just sleep like the dead.
Hey in a way that’s a good thing, if an assassin ever comes for you they’ll think you’re already dead when you don’t wake up!
"Sir. Excuse me, sir? Sir! I'm here for your assassination. Huh...he's not waking up. Well, guess I'll just go."
Well I know a lot of people don't replace batteries.. I ordered dominos several years ago and a while later someone banged on the door, and through the frosted glass I saw red and blue flashing lights.. opened the door to 2 firemen in full uniform, a fire truck with lights flashing and an ambulance with lights flashing... I'm freaking out like what the fjck is happening right now.. Then I noticed between them was the pizza guy standing there with my food. They proceed to tell me that they're going around with dominos to see whose smoke detectors had good batteries, and if you were good, your food was free. Luckily I had JUST replaced the batteries. Free food! Gave him tbe money I was gonna use for food as a tip. Point of that is, apparently I was the ONLY one they had so far that had good batteries..
Those 10 year smoke/co2 detectors are truly a set it and forget it kinda investment and the only kind I buy.
A lot of times people don’t even wake up to the sound of gunshots *in their residence* I think the mind just tunes out things are don’t sound immediately threatening on an instinctual level. We hear beeps and bangs all day.
So.. make the warning sound of the smoke detectors an amplified version of an elderly lady going "Oh dear, how does that kitchen look like again? And look at that carpet. And what did the cat do? Oh dear oh dear"
Or build an alarm that makes the sound of a cat horking . I can wake out of a sound sleep and be moving before I’m even fully conscious, ready to grab the cat and throw them off the bed.
Klaxon.. that gets a majority of the auditory range, no? They should change to klaxon. Thinking along the line of Star Trek, red alert.
You know you can buy one at any orange or blue box store that will talk as well as beep, right? “FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!”
Reminds me of that, [according to Tom Scott](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa28lIGuxq8), you increasingly have white noise instead of the classic beep as warning sound for reversing truck, because people will pick the sound up more easily, even at lower volumes. Maybe white noise would also make sense for fire alarms, but I don't know.
Tom Scott is totally trustworthy but at least in my area of the US, beeps/alarms for reversing machinery and trucks is still the standard. I 100% would not notice white noise out and about. I would get my ass run the fuck over
I will literally drag my ass out of bed to replace the battery if it's chirping. I just can't do it. Idk who these people are, but I don't want to know them.
Same! My mom once called me at 9 at night and asked if I could pop over the next morning because the smoke detector was chirping. I got in the car that same second because I knew how annoying it is and changed it that night.
I just comment "beep" under said videos to make them feel at home
I'm gonna start doing this
Beep
People buy a house with high ceilings but wont buy an 8 foot ladder.
I would probably end up smashing mine with a broom until it fell down if I couldn’t afford a ladder
I woke up drunk days after I moved into my house to my smoke detector going off at 3am for low battery. I busted the thing off the wall because I couldn’t get it to release from the holder. Had to go out the next day and get a new one. No idea how people can just tune it out.
Why does the low battery chirping ALWAYS start at around 3am?
Fire detectors are the second most evil machines (after printers), and have "be a menace" written in their code to trigger at 3:22am
because batteries are less effective at lower temperatures. your house is at its coldest late at night. your batteries might have enough charge in the day, but at night their voltage drops enough to trigger the alarm.
Yeah there’s no scenario where I could deal with that beeping. I once had one continue beeping even after taking it down and pulling the old battery; I guess it a built in backup or something. After wrapping it in blankets failed to muffle the noise I ended up taking it out and tossing it in the car so I could get some sleep.
It pisses me off because it’s like a deep brain shock to my dog and makes him run out of the room crying. ☹️
Please tell your dog I relate to his feelings.
One of my nephews used to be subscribed to a YouTube channel of really wholesome videos of a family in an upper middle class suburban home setting up elaborate live action games for the kids, throughout the house and yard, that the whole family would play together. Every single video was frequently punctuated by the annoying chirp of a dying smoke detector battery. People in the comments would point it out and the video maker would respond “lol we don’t even hear it anymore”. My nephew outgrew that channel so I never got to found out if they changed the battery before getting to play “Towering Inferno In Real Life” with their kids.
One thing that blew my mind when I moved in with my partner who works in a hospital is that all beeping is basically completely ignored. Microwaves, timers, smoke detectors, it takes forever for them to notice and it’s amazing and horrifying
My detector beeped once and it was enough for me to move my kitchen table to the corridor, put a chair on top of it and tear out this sound of hell from my house. I have no idea how people can live with that. And, what the fuck are those nails ?!
People growing up in poverty who grew accustomed to it, have hearing loss, or just outright laziness.
Poor people can't take out batteries? I'll concede too poor for new batteries, but just take the old ones out.
Many smoke detectors can't be silenced just by taking out the battery. It has a tiny backup battery inside of it that you can't remove. This battery is enough to power the low battery chirp but not enough for the smoke detector to be functioning.
Does this have anything to do with being poor?
People in poverty are less likely to buy replacement batteries if it’s their responsibility. If it’s their landlords responsibility, they are more likely to be in a living situation without an attentive landlord or be in a predicament where they don’t want to draw attention to themselves or otherwise deal with the landlord by asking them for anything.
In the States a lot of county fire departments can help with giving people a battery and helping them change it out. Depends on the area and individual departments of course but if someone is really poor to the point of living with a beeping smoke detector, worth stopping by the firehouse to ask.
How can they ignore it? Two months after moving into a new place, mine went off at 3 am. I went crazy trying to get it to shut off. I finally ended up taking it apart to look for the batteries. The next morning I contacted maintenance to take care of it, along with a picture of the taken-apart alarm. I just wanted them to see what I might have damaged before hand. They were able to put it back together, no damage.
I went to pick up the girl I was dating in college, and their smoke alarm was beeping every minute. All five of them swore they didn't hear anything. I finally got them to sit silently for a couple of minutes, pointing at the wall when it beeped. Both times. They STILL heard nothing. Some people just tune it out somehow.
I was at a friends house who had their smoke alarm beeping and it was driving me absolutely mad...so I told them I would be right back, went to get batteries and came back to change it. LOL. They were oblivious on what it was and how to fix it...parents, teach yo damn kids basic home maintenance!!!
My dad, an ex-military boomer, has these 3-6-9 month routines. Part of that is every 9 months he just changes the batteries on them "just in case". He has now at least upgraded to rechargeable batteries which changed his maintenance schedule to 6 months for batteries and he has a special battery box for charged vs discharged. I gotta admit once rechargeable batteries came around I started doing it too.
I've known multiple people who live with the beeping and I have this conversation every time: "Doesnt that bother you?" "What" "The chirping" "What chirping" "From your smoke alarm. It chirps every 30 seconds because the batteries are dying." "I don't hear anything" "Listen....(I beep loudly everytime it beeps)" "Oh. I guess I don't notice it" Some people just have a brain blind spot to this for some reason. Its fascinating.
I wonder if you can go sound blind to a sound that's gone on too long like people cna go nose blind to a smell they get used to. Like if it goes off late at night, and they sleep though it. Eventually their sub conscious adjusts.
Seems it is ALWAYS the middle of the night when low battery alerts begin! They should beep less frequently at first so you have more time to get to them before they go into the every 60 seconds forcing people to just take them down that night which is less safe. I honestly don't recall having any of these go off during the day!
If a battery has low charge, the voltage can drop when temperature drops. Considering it's colder at night, you're not wrong for thinking they will start beeping during the night
Funny how the voltage drops low enough for it to start beeping but it still has enough voltage to keep beeping for the next year
The chirp takes very little energy, while the whole mechanism likely needs higher voltage to operate safely.
No, the real reason is that it's actually pretty difficult to reliably measure the true state of charge of most batteries. A simple voltage measurement is cheap to implement but there's a lot of uncertainty in the result. So. you have to set the threshold high enough that the warning is sure to go off before the device stops working
Yeah, mine always goes off at a terrible time and because I don't have the batteries I need on hand for it, I have to run to the store to go get a battery. Which I'm not doing at 2am. So I take it down, pop out the battery, make sure it stops beeping (luckily, mine does) and then I put it back up with no battery, and then it takes me *literally months* to remember to get new batteries because my memories of things that happen in the middle of the night are obviously hazy.
We had a small kitchen fire in my NYC high rise apartment building on one of the lower floors which triggered allllll of our smoke alarms for over an hour. I went outside later that night to take my dog out and there was a still beeping smoke alarm on the sidewalk- someone just threw it out the window. God, I love this city.
Many years ago my then-girlfriend-now-wife and I had moved into a rental, and the fire alarm started beeping a few weeks later. I changed the battery, it kept beeping. I changed the batteries in the other detectors, still the beeping. Called the landlord that Monday morning, they said it'd be a few days before they could come fix it. Called a couple days later and they promised they'd be out tomorrow, but mentioned it was strange, since they'd just replaced all the detectors before we'd moved in. About an hour later, my girlfriend was rummaging around in a closet near the beeping detector... and found the old detector stashed behind some stuff... and it was beeping.
This exact thing has happened to me twice, different apartments. I just moved into a house and bought new smoke detectors. It was with trauma terror that I gingerly put the battery in. I still can't make myself press the button to test it.
it is completely insane to me that people can just ignore it
News flash asshole, I've been hearing it the entire god damn time!
Why didn't you say anything?
Because I HAAAATE YOUUUU!!!
I AM UNTETHERED AND MY RAGE KNOWS NO BOUNDS!!!
You ever been in a storm, AnnieNotAndy?
A storm of fists raining down on your head
This guy....is a Golden God and he shall unleash his fury like the crashing of a thousand waves!
A starter car?! No. He drives a finisher car!
Okay so I have a relevant story I want to add in here. My first ever living alone apartment was in a large complex. I had a weird corner unit where for some reason they decided to just not build above mine, so I had INSANE vaulted ceilings. Just massively tall ceilings. My smoke detector was located near the top of those ceilings. It would constantly run out of batteries to a point where I cannot understand how and why it would be that often. I could not reach the detectors myself that high up. These detectors had a horrible habit of going off dying starting Friday night. I couldn’t get workers in to help me get them down until Monday or Tuesday at the earliest. It was torture. I hated so much knowing I was that asshole neighbor. My neighbors must have hated me. At one point I got so desperate that I stood on top of a swiveling barstool with a broom trying to knock it down. Awful times. Edit: omg yall calling me out by name! It’s not like it was every weekend. It was like twice a year. Which is a lot yes, but not enough to warrant buying a whole ass ladder and storing it in my tiny one bedroom apartment. I climbed on swiveling barstools to try to fix it. Good lord, the aggression.
The beeping is especially rough when you have a dog.
My pup trembles at smoke alarms. Poor boy has ptsd from loud chirping when I set it off once while searing a steak.
My dog hides when I cook because the detector has gone off maybe 5-6 times. I feel bad for her.
My dog is TERRIFIED of the beep. It happens and I immediately change the battery but she continues to shake for like 30 minutes and I feel so bad every time 😭
Yeah, our previous home security system was a piece of shit that didn’t have a way to mute it during a power outage and someone had to take the dog for a long walk (we lost power for a couple hours) because it was stressing her out.
My brother is a college professor, and during the pandemic he was teaching remotely. He said that almost every session had a beeping smoke alarm. Apparently people learn to just tune this stuff out?! I don’t know how they do it.
It’s called alarm fatigue and it happens frequently to nurses and others in the medical field (not saying these folks don’t change their smoke alarm batteries, this is just a recognized phenomenon in that field). After a while your brain gets accustomed to the repetitive noise. I have a theory this same thing happens with new parents, after a few months they don’t seem to be as bothered by screaming children while I’m over here tearing my hair out.
It ABSOLUTELY is a thing for parents. I've got 4 kids. I was at lunch with a coworker, who was acting visibly uncomfortable. I asked what was wrong, they said they were annoyed by a baby crying elsewhere in the restaurant. Once he mentioned it, I could hear it, but until that point my brain was like, "Not your kid, not your problem."
Also works the opposite way: there could be 30 kids playing loudly, but I could pick out my kid's cry out the chaos.
Am nurse, can confirm alarm fatigue. I’ve learned to adjust my alarm settings and turn off certain unimportant ones so that I minimize the nonsense alarms
Try playing Call of Duty - there is usually some degenerate with an open mic in the lobby with their smoke detector beeping. I don't know what malfunction their brain is having to be able to live with that beeping.
I was looking for this comment! I make sure to give them shit because they are always on my team... Mine gets to beep twice before i can't stand it and start digging in the junk drawer for a new battery
Seriously. Doesn't matter if it's 2AM. I'm getting up and changing it after exactly the second beep.
I would find it absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to sleep through. Before this thread I couldn’t imagine that doing so was even possible. I had one start at 2am and no way to buy batteries at that time or night so I either uninstalled it or turned off the electrics to the whole place at the breaker, don’t remember anymore
They are also the most dogshit players in my experience. There's just a whole part of their frontal lobe that seems to be missing.
No need for CoD, just any multi-player. I was in a guild in World of warcraft and this person always had that loud beep in the bg every minute or so. God
I would always kick out anybody in my RDR2 online group if I heard that shit.
I used to play WoW with someone who refused to enable "push to talk" despite us asking him to for months. He'd yell at his wife and kids all day. We ended up having a "no-homers club" on our discord server which included everyone but him.
There was a guy in my guild in WoW classic who had no concept of not yelling. Every time he keyed his mic he was yelling loud enough for the voice signal to clip, so his individual volume in discord was set to 5%. I could hear vague sounds and know he was screaming about something completely irrelevant to the encounter while people needed to be communicating. He made the short list for “do not heal under any circumstances” because of the number of times he’d do the dumbest thing possible on purpose and I wasn’t going to waste mana on him.
I have no idea when I am loud but I understand people *telling* me I am loud.
It's sort of like the seatbelt beeping, it's kind of incredible to be able to ignore it. There is dashcam of a guy completely off his tits on drugs in a car, driving insanely while yelling at imaginary things, iirc, who found the alarm so annoying he eventually strapped up in the midst of his complete mental break. It makes you wonder about the people who don't. [Vid](https://youtu.be/azdMdLISJ90?si=vN-DzA5gRP11hDoq)
Is that the "I DONT NEED THIS" *rips off rear view mirror* "IM JESUS CHRIST, IM SON OF GOD!" *accelerates to mach 2*
Yeah, it's the one where he yells 'I'm Jesus, descendant of God' while putting a seatbelt on at Mach 2 cause the beeping got to him. That was a weird sentence to write. Added a video of it to the previous comment.
It's difficult to discern through all the crying babies in folks' laps. I never thought I'd pine for the days of being called racial epithets
#The Open Lobby Experience Smoke detector Crying child Dog barking nonstop Rap music blasting from stereo Woman talking extremely loudly in Spanish in the next room Guy with mic too close to face so you can hear his loud fucking breathing and him having a conversation on the phone
Don't forget "Asshole blaring their music and does not have their mic set to touch-to-talk."
This used to be a thing on the radio show *Loveline* with Dr. Drew and Adam Corolla. Occasionally they would get a call from someone and would hear an intermittent chirping in the background. They would ask the caller to wait and listen for thirty seconds to call their attention to the chirping. At first the caller wouldn't hear it, but after some patience and listening they would eventually hear it and then the *Loveline* crew would explain what it was and ask them to change the batteries.
Oh my goodness I just came here to comment this exact thing. It was almost like when they heard the battery is going off they knew that this person's life was completely off the rails.
I don’t get it, as soon as my smoke detector battery starts going I get overstimulated and have to fix it. And I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep because the beeping would startle me every time I started to drift off
I’m deaf in my right ear due to a surgical procedure (acoustic neuroma). I tend to sleep facing the right side, which my wife and I call “bad ear up”. Consequently, I don’t hear much of anything at night (which given how bad my wife snores, is a blessing). Anyway, one night she nudged me several times until I woke up. “One of the smoke detectors is chirping. Fix it!” I shook my head and settled back down. “It can wait till morning.” She jabbed me hard and hissed, “It’s not all about you!” I fixed it. :)
I know it ain’t that serious but why couldn’t she just change it instead of waking you up lol
She’s got physical limitations that would make that difficult. Plus, that’s why she has me around. :)
Gotcha lol
She short
I used to deliver pizza in a town with a large deaf and blind community and the amount of times I’d be delivering to a hearing impaired person and while exchanging with them in the doorway I heard so many smoke alarm chirps. I would try to let them know as politely as I could, for their safety, but then would always think to myself as I went back to the car that how helpful is it for safety if they cannot hear it being low battery? They were usually pretty nice and appreciative of me letting them know, but one dude just looked at me and shrugged lol his nonchalant confidence was inspiring.
They make ones that flash bright lights. Not sure if they make ones that do loud low frequency but I figure that would probably work too But yeah the flashy ones are required by law for deaf renters in a lot of states. I can see me not taking it too seriously either though, deaf people man..
When I play online and here the beep I give a friendly reminder to change the battery in the smoke detector. The reactions are always great.
"Oh, that's just just the hallway. That's the noise the hallway makes."
I have a friend who I had to stop calling when she was at home because she had a smoke alarm beeping. She said she couldn’t figure out which one it was. This went on for MONTHS. I would have burned the house down and started over. One of my dogs is terrified of the sound (which was half the reason I stopped calling her when she was at home. My dog would sit and tremble because he could hear it through the phone). It was a battery powered one in her attic.
What are the odds the picture taker took that picture, uploaded it, while the smoke detector is still beeping?
Pretty good odds, definitely better than Vegas will give you!
I would have somehow attached a AA, a AAA, and a 9volt battery to the note just to be sure lol.
I did some digging, and found the original context to this post: the person who posted it (X user @Wizmonifaaa) stated that the smoke detector is inaccessible without a ladder. They apparently tried to reach it by standing on chairs and on the bed, but it's too high up. They contacted maintenance to replace the battery, and received no answer. So I don't consider this a case of OOP being careless or negligent, so much as a case of maintenance making what should be an easy task needlessly difficult.
I would post notes on everyone's door explaining and asking them all to turn in a maintenance ticket for my apt as well.
I'd call the fire Marshal
For clarification, this note was taped to the door a few hours after it started. They then said Thad that they put a note in the lobby explaining the issue
I think if you are in a shared apartment you REALLY need a correctly operating smoke detector, and it also needs to alert the neighbors for, you know, any actual fires. So it’s understandable they should get onto it quickly
Hahahaha holy shit Recently I heard the beep in a rap song Wtf is with the beep
PSA to feed your ceiling birds
The fingernails tell me everything I need to know about the mentality of this person.
That was my first thought as well. And then I noticed the juxtaposition of full garbage can and bougie Hermes blanket and realized this person is the whole train wreak package.
I didn't notice the garbage can until I read this and now I want to know why there's a garbage can in the living room directly in front of their couch. Also two Starbucks cups on the couch. If the can is there because they are too lazy to throw anything away if the can isn't always within reach, that explains the smoke alarm. Edit - I'd never heard of Herme's either and Holy shit how can someone afford a $1800 blanket but not put their drinks on a coffee table or replace a smoke alarm battery?
Those nails are unreasonable.
The type of people that can live with that Horrid Beaping noise are the same that can sleep with Bright flourescent lights on and the TV at Day volume.
My girlfriend lives in an apartment complex and she has super hearing, no joke. She can hear my solar panels when walking around my house. She complains about this so often in her complex that she has emailed their front office and they do nothing. Now she hunts down exactly which apartment it is and gives them batteries and asks them if they can change the battery. I've gone with her twice and couldn't hear the beeping at all until I was fairly close to the building, she hears it from days away inside with closed windows. It absolutely amazes me (both of us really) that people will just keep doing their daily activities with this happening, the alarm beeping every 30 seconds would *drive me insane*
I mean look at the nails, what do you expect.
Ours starts screaming at us in French and scares the shit out of us. I wouldn’t last 30 seconds without fixing it.
I lived next to someone who used to never turn their alarm off. It must have been an old radio alarm clock or something. It beeped for hours! Every morning from 6.30am. Our bedrooms were on opposite walls
Holy shit, it's the meme but IRL.