For the last few nights, some gremlin has been setting off our smoke detector alarms in the middle of the night.

I was gold by the girl child that it happened on Wednesday night, 'though neither the wife or I remember it. I do remember having a restless night Wednesday night, so it may have been the case the alarm tripped, waking me, but was silent before I achieved total awareness, leaving me with the impression that I just woke up.

When I say the alarms went off, I mean that they went of briefly, not triggered as though a fire were actually occurring. Neither did they go off with the vigor that they do when you hit the "test" button. Just one electronic "bah-woop," but loud enough to be heard outside.

As if it weren't enough that they're terribly loud, there are a lot of them. There is a smoke detector in each bedroom (count five--four up and one down), each "hallway" (one up, one down), and the basement. Curiously, we realized there isn't one in the kitchen, instead the main floor halway covers all common areas on the main floor.

To make it worse still, they're wired together so if one goes off, they all go off. Unlike one would think with electronics, though, they don't go off exactly the same time. The little bit of latency puts them in a little "round." Some start at the same time, some start a little later, and some start a little later still. So it's not one "bah-woop" magnified over eight alarms, but more like a "ba-ba-h-ba-h-wo-h-wo-op-op-woop" sound trickling through the house.

Thursday night was just a precursor though. Although, as mentioned, I didn't realize the alarms had gone off on Wednesday, they caught me Thursday night. At about 3:00 AM they caught me.

At three-o'clock in the A-freaking-M the round of alarms went off, this time kicking me right into awake. I sat up in bed, trying to visually determine if there was immediate danger (they're supposed to alert you to the smoke before the fire), and then noticed there was no second wave of alarm sounds. I expect when there's an actual alarm, the signal will repeat until the alarm condition subsides. I've been in drills and buildings with actual fires, and that's what they do: "bah-woop bah-woop bah-woop..."

I pulled myself from bed and did a quick search of the house, top to bottom, sniffing for smoke (I'm a pretty good smoke detector myself--allergies), looking for flame, and trying to sense changes in temperature. I found none. I double-checked some of the fire-prone areas, like the furnace in the basement and cooking surfaces in the kitchen. No fire found, so I let the dogs out, who were uselessly following me for the search, and returned to bed.

About every half-hour the alarm went off again. I checked each time, but never found anything.

At one point I started looking behind and beneath furniture for an intruder who was perhaps triggering the alarm in an attempt to get someone a little more managable to come down to inspect, or perhaps to alarm us into complacency to give them the time to steal our stuff while we ignored the alarm. No one was in the house, all of the windows were unbroken and locked, and the doors were secure. No one was lurking in the yard, nor were there any unexpected vehicles on the street.

At the five-o'clock alarm I started poking at some of the alarms. I happened to be standing in the kitchen, and thought I heard the "bah-woop" start in the bedroom on the main floor--my office. I did my best visual inspection (lights on in the right places, the plastic in the right shape). A can of compressed air cought my eye, so I used it to blow away any dust or insects that may have been interfering with the IR sensor in the device. I hit the two alarms on the main floor and then the one in the basement, 'cause they were the closest. As I sprayed, the sensor light flickered, as though thinking about whether to alarm or not. It didn't. The detector in the basement was cluttered with spider webs, so I gave it a little extra attention.

While I was doing this, the wife came to ask me why the alarms were doing this. She'd asked me several times when they went off before, and I grumpily replied I didn't know. She asked, again, if we could disable the alarms, and I explained that we couldn't easily. During the discussion I showed her what it was like when the "test" button was hit, which sent a flurry of sound through the house, but it was noticably different than what had been happening as the alarm triggered a few times to my quick button depress, instead of the single sound that had been happening.

I debated just starting my day or trying to get another couple hours of sleep. The desire for sleep won me over, so I crawled back into bed. The alarms didn't trigger again.

Friday was a rough day at work, as I was dog tired. I made it through the day without falling asleep in any meetings or drooling at my desk, but I'm pretty sure I was less than productive. We lounged for the evening and turned in early.

Last night we got one errant alarm, to which I did a quick house-scan, but no repeat of Thursday night's festivities.

Everyone woke up grumpy this morning, but we muddled through getting ready and will soon go out for some breakfast.