What the heck is that?

Last night we were awakened by a LOUD alarm outside our bedroom. We thought we had a fire. We took off to find the source of the alarm. We realized there was no fire, no smell of smoke, nothing. We were being bombarded with the shrill sound, nevertheless. I had been sick for a couple of days and was foggy in the brain to begin with. Glenn and I went from smoke detector to smoke detector trying to find the culprit. None seemed to be blaring. Glenn got the ladder and we looked like Laurel and Hardy running aimlessly from one to another. We finally realized the sound might be coming from downstairs and down we went.

This sound increased in intensity as we went downstairs and we were encouraged but still there were no smoke alarms near the sound. I finally looked down and saw that our carbon monoxide detector was blinking. I snatched it out of the wall. I opened the doors to air out the house and turned on fans. I opened up the window to our bedroom. Then I plugged the detector back in. Silence.

We kept the house opened up while I shut off both furnaces. We had noticed on Friday that the downstairs furnace was not working. We changed the filters, climbed up in the attic and took a look but resolved to call the repairman when it was not the weekend since the temp. here is not that cold. We made one mistake, however. We should have shut off the faulty furnace. It continued to try to start up every time it got cool enough to trigger the thermostat.

This is the third time our family has been affected by carbon monoxide. My mother's parakeet kept falling off it's perch one winter and I remembered the parakeet in the mine story and how parakeets are affected by gasses earlier than humans. They came and tested her home and found a leak.

Meg, my daughter-in-law was feeling very ill and sleeping for long periods and we found out that their apartment had a leak a few years ago. Long story short.....get a carbon monoxide detector. The life you save could be your own.