Alarm! Alarm!

So, right-smack-dab on the day that the insurance adjuster is coming out to check out the damage from last week’s drainpipe problems, our Fire/CO Detector/Alarm for the basement went out.

In fact, the unit is 7 years old, and most smoke detectors that use an ionizing detector are programmed to quit at that point because of the isotope half-living away, or something like that.  It’s just the coincidence was annoying (“Why yes, of course we are safe and insurable and have a smoke/CO detector here in the basement.   Um … no, it’s not up on the wall right now …”).

After some poking around on Amazon and reading generally bad reviews for the LifeAlert unit we had (it lasted the full lifetime, but the messages its voice gave were incomprehensible), I ordered a Kidde Nighthawk. Which, it turns out, is the brand we have up in the upstairs hall, too.

So here’s my scolding finger-waggle at my readers — do you have smoke and CO detectors in your dwelling?  Proper number and properly placed?  And if so, why not?

I, for one, feel  properly virtuous and diligently safe.  Unless a fire breaks out or the furnace starts having CO problems in the next two days, before the replacement is delivered, in which case I’ll feel really unlucky, too.