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Citizen complaint of the day: The smoke detector that has been chirping for two years straight

A citizen who has somehow not been driven completely insane file a 311 complaint about a smoke detector on East 2nd Street in South Boston:

[The building] which appears vacant, had had a smoke detector dead battery chirp going off 24x7 for the last 2 years. Can we do something get the chirp to stop? Thank you!

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Comments

live a little.

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Where there's smoke, there's fire.

Where there's fire, there's a destroyed smoke detector.

(Not that I'm condoning arson …)

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There’s always money in the banana stand.

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Dead battery chirp for two years? Wouldn't it just die by now?

I'm thinking it is probably a battery backup for a wired alarm system with a battery so old that it won't fully charge, hence the "low battery" chirping. Since it is still getting electricity, it can chirp to tell someone who isn't there to hear it that the battery needs to be replaced.

I had to live with that one place that I rented.

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If it's hardwired it will chirp until you cut the power to the building, replace the battery, or smash it to a million pieces.

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Southie is so quiet you can hear a neighbor's low-battery chirp?

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I live in Allston, which isn't exactly known for being quiet, and I can hear low-battery chirps all over the neighborhood, sometimes from several houses away.

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The urban canyons between buildings reverberates the sounds.

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There's a reason why its that pitch & sound. So you will hear it.. remember different pitch and frequencies of sound travel different ways. On a semi quiet night I can hear a smoke detector chirp from miles away.

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Thanks for the fun fact regarding the frequency, I don't believe I've ever heard one in the 18 years of living in my building. I seem to only hear them over the phone

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The beep is... random! It is never the same time between beeps,. Sometimes its 2 minutes, sometimes its 10 minutes. Its also why trying to hunt down one of these in an area with smoke detectors is the most annoying and time consuming thing.

The whole point of the beeping and time delay is so it will be fucking annoying enough so you'll change the battery... and be safe.

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Sounds like battery on a hardwired unit to me, too.
Vacant building? Send the address to ISD or Boston FD.

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Does anybody else hear this chirping? Maybe this citizen murdered a sparrow two years ago, and his conscience is driving him mad.

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That drive us fucking crazy.

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