Fire Alarms are best late at night
So the fire alarm in my building went off half an hour ago at about 11pm. The alarm is very loud. The siren is located right outside my bedroom door, good times.
I was just setting the alarm on my cellphone at the time. After grabbing my cellphone and keys I dashed outside only to realise I wasn’t wearing shoes. It’s currently very cold down here in Dunedin, I think my feet were close to frostbite. For a building as distinguished as Dawson House we received three fire engines and a small army of firemen.
Then one of the firemen interrogated me. Turns out it was the sensor in my room that set the alarm off. No I did not wave my blanket in front of the sensor until the alarm went off. No I do not smoke. No I’m not lying to avoid the huge false callout fee. I mean really, I’m not a complete idiot. I did not set of that sensor.
20 minutes later a friendly fellow from Wormalds turned up. He had a look inside the detector and found a dustmite. Incredible. A dustmite. He explained it’s actually quite a common problem. The dustmites are small enough to fit through the mesh designed to stop insects getting inside. They can block the sensor that senses the infrared beam inside the alarm, just like in high school physics. I had the honour of killing this particular dustmite although others later suggested it should have been tortured.
This dustmite problem is unavoidable. In fact, the University did a survey and the cleaner your room is the more likely this is to happen, go figure.
So now I can’t get to sleep. 5% test at 9am tomorrow. Hmmm.
