Legal Commentary

2010 - the Year of the Beeps - Part Two

By Professor University of Miami School of Law

January 1st. Too early in the day. Downstairs something was beeping.

That alone isn't saying much, it seems like every time we bring something new into the house it wants to beep at us. The programmable coffee pot beeps when the coffee is done dripping, and again when the hot plate turns off. The microwave, the washer, the dryer (but not the dishwasher) beep when they are done. The dryer even has an option to keep tumbling clothes every few minutes for a few more hours at the cycle is done in service of the idea that they will get less wrinkled, but that only makes it beep all the more.

But this wasn't one of the usual beeps, it was surplus. And it came and went. Beep. Delay. Beep. Delay. Beep. Very very very long delay.

The noise seemed to come from the kitchen. Or as it the dining room? By the time I'd get over there, the beeps would stop. And then start again some twenty or thirty minutes later.

Eventually I decided it was coming from the garage (which has a door to the kitchen). That made the leading suspects the garage smoke detector and its neighboring carbon monoxide detector. Neither was blinking. Both are installed right next to each other, in very high in a hard-to-reach location about ten feet off the floor. I can get to them by standing on a large object to the left of the four stairs leading down from the kitchen, then taking a very long stretch to stand on the small edge of the little platform that hold up our air pusher. It's rather precarious there, although there are walls to push against to keep from falling. It's very hard to get down again. I wasn't going up there until I was sure I needed to.

It wasn't until Saturday, the 2nd, that I caught the carbon monoxide detector in the act. Climbing up revealed that the alarm meant the backup 9V battery was low, not that I was about to asphyxiate – that would have rated four beeps in quick succession. A quick battery change, some more gymnastics, and peace.

Temporarily.

Full post as published by Discourse.net on January 06, 2010 (boomark / email).