The smoke alarm chirped only after I stopped looking at it
Funny/WTFAt 2:14 in the morning, something chirped.
I sat up and waited.
Silence.
Thirty seconds later: chirp.
I walked into the hallway and stood beneath the smoke alarm. Nothing happened. I looked at the carbon monoxide alarm near the bedroom. Its light appeared normal. I checked the alarm in the guest room.
Chirp.
The sound came from behind me.
I turned around. Now the hallway alarm looked guilty, although smoke alarms do not have expressions and this one had remained silent while under direct observation.
I brought over a chair, then stopped. Half-awake investigation from furniture seemed like a poor safety plan. I turned on every light instead and listened from the floor.
Chirp.
This time it seemed to come from the kitchen.
I checked the microwave, refrigerator and a small timer in a drawer. The timer had no battery. The refrigerator made three normal refrigerator noises, each of which became suspicious because it occurred during the investigation.
For ten minutes, the chirp waited until I faced the wrong direction.
I finally used my phone to record the hallway while I stood in the bedroom. On playback, the chirp was clearly loudest near the guest-room alarm. I checked its manufacturer instructions, replaced the battery as directed and used the test control.
The chirping stopped.
I returned to bed. Five minutes later, I heard another chirp.
It was a bird outside.
That second sound was slightly different. At two in the morning, however, all short sounds become members of the same criminal organization.
The difficult part was not replacing a battery. It was identifying which device needed attention without guessing, disabling alarms or climbing around while tired.
What is the safest way to locate an intermittent chirp when several alarms are nearby? Record from different rooms, check indicator patterns or inspect devices one at a time using their instructions? And why does the sound always wait until you have looked directly at the wrong ceiling?