Our handyman retired and moved to the other side of Atlanta, so we had to find a new handyman. My dad asked a friend of his and he gave us a name and phone number. We needed the smoke detector batteries changed and I had a list of other items that needed to be taken care of and we set up a visit.
Everything seemed to have gone really well. The valance I wanted up over the ugly window was perfectly positioned. The new shower head was good and not dripping. Everything was awesome.
Until around midnight.
Chirp.
I wake up out of a sound sleep.
Chirp.
I mutter a profanity. That damn smoke detector is bitching about its batteries. The one in my bedroom. Gah!
I hear another chirp from the other side of the house. Now I have dual smoke detectors going off every minute or so and--of course!--they're not synchronized. So one beeps there's a pause and the other beeps. All. Night. Long.
The ceilings in my house are high and I'm afraid of heights and there's no way I'm sending my dad up on a ladder. Especially not in the middle of the night when everyone is groggy. I go to my office and grab my noise cancelling headset. After plugging it into my phone, I choose some soothing meditation music, hoping it would help block the chirping.
Nope. That chirp penetrates. There is literally no way to avoid it.
When my dad got up around 7:30, the first thing I say to him is: You can't go back to bed. You have to call the handyman and get him back out here to fix this thing!
My dad agreed. He said he'd taken out his hearing aid and he still heard the chirping all night long.
So what was the problem?
The handyman's assistant didn't take off the film covering the battery and the contacts and points weren't touching because of this.
Seriously.
I mainlined coffee the next day because OMG! Like no sleep. My dad said the kid was embarrassed. As he should be. Even I know better than that.
