Fire Alarm Season

Every summer, around the end of July, I am very rudely awakened by my fire alarm. It will beep about three or four times, then stop. I will start to doze off again, just in time for it to sound AGAIN. And again. And again. This will continue for several nights over a couple weeks' time. For the first summer in our house, we just endured this--having many sleepless nights over our schizophrenic fire alarm system. The next summer, we took the batteries out of the alarms, only to find out that they work WITHOUT the batteries in, too.

Last summer, after the first couple nights of this torture, I think I discovered the cause. About that same time of summer, we have these tiny little bugs that come in through our window screens. (And our windows HAVE to stay open all night to cool things off enough to make the days bearable this time of year). They usually congregate around my bedside lamp on the wall, and in the bathroom all around the vanity lights. By the next morning, they're always dead all over the countertops. Strangely, this lasts about the same amount of time as the fire alarm mayhem. Hmmmm. All I can figure is that after the lights go out, the little bugs fly up toward the little green fire alarm light in my room and cover the smoke sensor, causing the alarm to go off. Genius, I know!

Anyway, last night, around 1:30, the alarm sounded for the first time this summer. I laid there, hoping that this would be one of those nights where it only goes off once or twice, and then quits. We weren't so lucky. After about twenty of thirty minutes of not more than a three minute break between outbursts, and a very scare little girl in my bed (Mylie is TERRIFIED of the fire alarm), we did what we had to do. I grabbed a ladder, which Tony climbed up to remove the battery, then I was off to the utility room to flip the breaker that controls the alarm. So hopefully we can sleep in peace over the next couple of weeks until those pesky, fire-alarm-loving bugs leave. In the meantime, I'll be praying we don't have a fire, and welcoming any suggestions for a better way to deal with this problem.