False Alarm

Around 11:30 last night, as I was loading the dishwasher and getting ready to go to bed, the smoke alarms went off. I say "alarms" because the house has a hard-wired system (as opposed to ones that run on batteries) with detectors on each floor, including the basement and the attic. If one goes off, they all go off.

These alarms are frighteningly, ear-piercingly loud. I sleep quite soundly knowing that if there is ever an actual fire, we will all get out safely. But when they do go off, as they did one other time, it's so loud it's literally painful. The dog came into the kitchen, whining because of the noise. The Mrs. had been asleep, but she scurried out of bed, grabbed the dog's leash and the dog, and headed outside. Not for a moment did I think there was a fire; I was more concerned about what did set off the alarms.

I quickly checked the stairs heading down to the basement: no smoke, but I caught a whiff of what I thought was a toaster oven type of smell from the upstairs apartment. I was on my way outside when the alarm stopped. A moment later it started again, then stopped after a few seconds. We went back in the house, and a minute later there was a knock at the back kitchen door. One of the upstairs neighbors wanted to know if everything was okay. I mentioned the smell, and he said, "Oh yeah, I had the oven on its cleaning cycle. Do you think that could have set off the alarm?"

I suppressed the urge to say something mean, and suggested that in the future he might want to make sure he opened a window before running that cycle. The dog settled back down, the Mrs. went back to bed, and I followed soon after.