Automatic Waste of Time

Automatic fire alarms have been protecting people and annoying firefighters since the late 1890's. A helpful tool when the place is actually on fire but unfortunately they malfunction on a regular basis. There is also the horrible practice of pulling alarms for no reason. We have an apartment complex not far from our station where a group of kids regularly pull the alarms then run off. Not only is it annoying for the residents who have to listen to it all night, but for us as we still have to respond with lights and sirens. I bet those little brats don't know that if we were killed while responding to the false alarm that they would be charged with murder. Not funny anymore is it?


Last week we were sent to that apartment complex to what we assumed was another prank. Come to find out it was a woman's ignorance that decided to call 911 because her smoke detector was intermittently beeping. We get to the door and who else but the Jefferson's open up! (Pre East Side). The apartment was astonishing. There were several mountians of clothes, two 100lb bags of pecans, and "All in the Family" playing on tv.  The lady tried explaining to me how her smoke detector had been going off for the last three days and thought that it was somehow related to her air conditioner or washing machine. I told her that smoke detectors sometimes malfunction and that she should call maintenance to have it looked at. I also told her that there wasn't anything we could do for her unless it was on fire but she kept pointing to the thermostat and saying that maybe something inside here was causing it. I think she thought that the thermostat was the air conditioner by the way she was explaining it. Then she told us that when one detector went off, the others "did beep beep beep". I told her that they are wired together and they all go off at once but I don't think that registered in her head. She told me, "but this one went off then that one went off and they would all go off if this one went off." It's was no use explaining anything anymore. Her other theory was that the upstairs neighbors had possibly burnt food. I asked her if she had smelled or seen any smoke and she said of course she said no. 

The second alarm we made last week was at a party hall around 4:00 in the morning. Not expecting much at that time of night, we pulled up to a packed crowd partying the night away. It was some sort of African dance party with hundreds of people. Someone had pulled an alarm in the back room so we reset the system until we found out that some idiot pulled every single alarm in the building. Each and every one of them had to be reset. On our way out, we were stalked by an old drunk man who was telling us how good the food was. About a month prior, we had an automatic alarm in the same building. But this time intead of an African party, it was a  quinceanera. Thankfully that time, it was only one pull station by the restroom. We got the box reset so  myself and one of the firefighters went to figure out the main alarm panel while my Engineer and the other firefighter stayed behind to, I guess make sure no one else pulled the alarm. The alarm was a bitch to reset with trouble codes popping up so I ended up calling the alarm company to figure this out. I wouldn't normally call the alarm company but I didn't want to go back out there again, and not to mention that there were a crap load of people and if a fire really did break out, then they would need an alarm to let them know. We finally get everything reset and come back to find out that the hottest woman at the party (I think someone who worked there) came over to the two pull station guardians and brought them each a big ass piece of cake. So the two of us that were actually working got jack squat. Their excuse? Too busy "monitoring the pull station" or by that I mean watching the ass coming in and out of the restroom to remember to get us any cake. So we leave, half cakeless and go back to the station with stupid confetti and paper streamers stuck to our shoes.