From the frying pan into the fire

A month or two ago, the building where we live installed a new fire alarm. 

Residents complained that the old fire alarm made too much noise.  They had a point, the alarm sounded like an old-fashioned coffee grinder.  On and on and on it went until we were all half deaf.

Was there ever a fire?  Of course not, the alarm was tripped because someone let dinner burn or by obnoxious kids.  Regardless, when the alarm was set off, the fire brigade visited the building and $500 had to be paid.

After yet another false alarm, the fire marshal suggested that a new fire alarm system was installed.  And so it was.

The new alarm was different from the old one.  Instead of one alarm box in the corridor, every single condo unit was fitted with its own alarm system.

Just what exactly that meant became apparent the first time the alarm went off … OMG the thing was so loud we had to yell at each other to be heard.  The thing went peep, peep, peep, on and on and on.

While annoying during the day, at night it was absolutely unbearable.  Nobody, but absolutely nobody, got another wink of sleep.  I tried to block out the noise by putting my fingers in my ears and by putting a pillow over my head, nothing helped.

Tonight the alarm was yet again set off and when the peep, peep, peep, started I nearly jumped out of my skin.

We got creative though, to block out the noise, Dieter held a pillow against the ceiling speaker.

This position was not the most comfortable one though, so he had to come up with a better system that was not as strenuous on the arm muscles.  He found it in the form of a broom.

Of course, it’s not much fun just standing there, one has to have some form of entertainment.  As it turns out, Dieter can block the noise with a broom stick pushed against a pillow and read a book at the same time.

Yep, we Maneros are multi taskers …