Transcription A paper attached to a street post with a picture of Lisa Simpson rocking back and forth. The text reads “Attention! Hi neighbor! Did you have a smoke alarm that kept beeping once every 60 seconds that you decided to throw in your yard out of annoyance? If so- it's now annoying me! Because guess what? It's beeping right outside my bedroom window! Every time it beeps a piece of my soul dies. Please get rid of it, I absolutely beg of you. It's been a month.“
Right out of school I got a job working in a shitty retail store where we would prank each other. For some reason there was a smoke detector still in the box that had a dying battery and chipped every few minutes. I would hide it in other worker’s aisles in the morning when we would straighten before opening. Fun times
That thing might make it to its 5th minute if I were in this position. I sure as hell wouldn’t take long enough to make a sign about it, let alone put up with it for a fucking month.
This is how I feel about windchimes. Take them the fuck inside and put em in front of a fan if you need to hear tinkly sounds all the goddamn time.
It’s unshielded street lights for me. If you absolutely have to have a lit street/front yard/parking lot, fine, but the light should cover exactly that area and nothing more.
Well, we should be within our rights to ask our neighbors not to shine their lights directly through our bedroom windows at night, but unfortunately I realize that’s not the world we currently live in.
nah wind chimes are nice
Especially big ones. Gimme bongs, keep your tinkles.
Based
No you’re nice.
no they are
Had to do this once at my old apartment. Building next door had some kind of alarm that would beep for 10 minutes straight, stop, then do it again like an hour later. Over and over. Forever. Went on for months. Right outside my bedroom window.
After realizing no one else in either building was going to do something about it I taped a very large, very rude note on the front door of the building calling them out. It was gone within a couple days.
This is what happens when you provide no way for anyone to contact your building’s management.
It always happens in the middle of the night, like it’s waiting. I tore one of mine off the ceiling and put it in the car, in the garage, so I couldn’t hear it. I damn near smashed it, but then I had the idea of putting it in the car.
I’ve been told it’s usually at night because it’s coldest, and batteries work less well the colder they get. Makes sense to me, still sucks though.
That and gnats.
gnats
what’s the story here
This seemed like a good plan until I thought about the fact that I would definitely forget it was there until approximately 10 seconds into the next time I drove anywhere.
I had that in my own apartment. I got used to it so much that I didn’t notice it anymor
RIP RaivoKulli 🔥
They came and changed the alarms to new ones a few months into the beeping. Problem solved!
The town home next to ours was abandoned and had the smoke alarm beep every 60s or so. We tried calling the city and they were no help so we broke in and handled it ourselves.
It was a weird system where the smoke detectors were hooked into the security system which was hooked into one of those soda can sized 9v (12v?) batteries in the basement. I guess that battery was dying. Disconnected that and the beeping finally stopped.
Not next door to me, but a house on my walk has done this twice over the past few years. It’s been going on for at least a month this time, every time I walk past BEEP BEEP BEEP! I think the house is a rental. If I lived next door to that, I would 100% break in and solve the problem.
I would have gone in their yard to take care of it myself
Nowadays in the US, where it looks like this was taken (why do I feel like I have to add that anytime I mention the US lest 50 people point out that not everything revolves around the US), that could get you shot blindly through a door as your neighbour satisfies their blood lust to finally kill someone with one of the many firearms they keep for innocent passerby they think they can get away with saying made them fear for their lives.
The person you’re replying to is probably European. Any red-blooded American would just shoot the smoke detector from their side of the property line
Amen, brother.
It’s possible they tried and can’t find the damn thing. That chirp is just infrequent enough to make locating the source difficult.
Solution: go to neighbor’s yard and commit arson. Then it will hopefully chirp enough to be found.
Do people not understand all you need to do is remove the battery from the alarm and disconnect it from any power cables to make it stop beeping
It usually beeps like that because the battety is dying… Just change the battery!
I thought the same thing but then remembered I had to replace mine recently and remember seeing smoke alarms coming with ‘lifetime’ liON batteries. They where even cheaper than the 9v ones. This is going to be more of a problem in 10/years. I bought the 9v ones because I didn’t want to deal with what happens when it starts dyeing.
Edit oh I can’t wait till they come with some sort of subscription and they beep if you don’t pay.
The number of people on virtual meetings with smoke detectors crying out for a new battery drives me insane. 9v batteries are not expensive and smoke detectors save lives.
It may be beeping because it’s past its 10 year working period. Some are programmed to beep continuously after 10 years to signal replacement needed.
Yep! Discovered our rentals smoke alarms were like 15 years old. Got us new ones at least.
Even if they’re permanently wired in with a Li-ion backup battery. I get why they do it, but realistically they’re probably good for longer?
Most of the ones that exhibit that behavior are the types that relay on radioactive decay. decay being the key word there. They get less radioactive over time and need to be replaced.
“I’m sorry, sir, your smoke detectors aren’t nearly radioactive enough to be considered safe.”
Ah, I forgot they rely on decay. Makes sense why 10 years is the lifetime. They use Am if I recall?
It’s the sensors accuracy that is of concern at the 10 year mark, not the battery life
Ah. Didn’t think of that. Makes sense due to how they detect.
TIL.
A month? Holy hell if it beeps every 60 seconds I’d be going door to door. I’m sure other people in the neighborhood would be happy to help.
Yeah hell no to a month of that nonsense. I give it one day before I’m jumping a fence and smashing it with a hammer.
You misspelled three minutes
You misspelled one beep
Hey, you can’t just smash my trash with a hammer!
Oh, really? Maybe ask your wife about that.
1 year. Our neighbor has been doing this for a year.
After a week i would have stolen it and tossed it.
A day lol
I’ve only been in 2 people’s houses where the smokr alarm was doing the battery chirp. Like… Get a new battery for it! Or, hell, take the near dead one out so it at least stops beeping. It probably doesn’t habe enough juice to actually function in the event of a fire, anyway. At least it doesn’t need to be annoying.
Every couple of months we have the handyman come and check the alarms and radiators, it’s been a while since I heard the low-power chirp
Only two of the 5 in my apartment are actually hooked up to the main power. The other 3 are battery only and just taped to the wall with Command strips. You telling me they’re all supposed to be wired directly?
I only have two in mine, and yes they’re both wired in. The building is relatively newish build though
If it’s up to proper code then removing the battery won’t help as the detector is supposed to be hooked up to the main power, the chirp is to remind you to change the battery so that it still works in the event of a power outage.
I’m not exactly sure how smoke alarm logic works, but at least in my current and previous house, once one starts beeping all the ones in the house start; and removing the offending one doesn’t always stop the others.
Allow me to introduce the 9V battery.
The new ones start beeping after they hit their 10 year expiration date. So not always a low battery beep. You just have to replace them to make it stop.
Our new Kiddie ones run on 2AAs. Which leak out their electrolyte sometime during the first year and then start corroding the battery terminals.
And since nobody makes reliable AA batteries anymore the newest ones will probably pop this year too. I’ll be impressed if the detector lasts 6 years.
Im in Germany and haven’t had a leaking battery (except the ones that come with cheap chinese electronics). And I mostly buy the cheap batteries from the supermarket. I just don’t buy batteries, that weight nothing.
And they got fucking expensive!
And its like 2 companies that make them
Allow me to introduce the 9mm handgun.
Allow me to introduce the 12-inch pianist
Sorcery…
Why would this be on a post rather than at the neighbour’s house? Or, god forbid, speaking to them?
The building to the right of the sign looks like it may be a multi-unit dwelling, so it may not be clear who the culprit is. Also, many people don’t know their neighbors very well, or may have anxiety or some type of fear of social situations. In this case, they may be concerned that it may turn into a confrontation, especially if they let this go on for a month (as others have said, three minutes is my max tolerance for this). And the sign is funny and not particularly aggressive, although it may not be effective on the type of person who 1. throws their smoke detector outside instead of replacing the battery, and 2. allows it to continue beeping for a month. Maybe the OOP felt a little public shaming is in order.
Something like that happened to me. A neighbor had the alarm running out of battery so it was beeping every 3 minutes or so. From my apartment this was a very faint noise but it really drove me crazy, my SO couldn’t even hear it. Lasted for at least a month, this guy was not at home. Until the firefighters showed up and forced his door and shut the alarm down.
Isn’t that some sort of low battery warning? If so, it might stop on its on in a few weeks, worse case scenario.
That battery will be low for a long time before it is fully dead.
