Last night, my smoke alarm woke me up at 11:40 PM. I go to bed at 10:00 PM, so I had just started into a nice sleep when I was startled awake.

There was no smoke. Just the alarm beeping very loudly outside my bedroom door to tell me it wanted a new battery. At first, though, in my not-fully-awake state I wasn’t sure if the alarm was sounding only in my apartment. I checked the outside hallway to see if any of my neighbours were evacuating, and no-one was there. I was the only person being alarmed.

I had been alarmed earlier in the day, too, when I was heating up a frozen pizza. Each time I opened the oven door to put in and take out the pizza, that same smoke alarm had been set off. I had to open the outside doors and flap a towel at it to make it stop.

It was beeping because a few days ago I had cooked some savoury breakfast muffins (yummy!) and had not realized that the batter had bubbled over. When I heated up the oven for the pizza, that batter was burning on the oven floor. After the oven cooled down, I took out the oven liner, cleaned out the debris and thought all was well.

So, when the alarm went off at 11:40, I thought it was something to do with the burnt batter. It was only after I realized it was a loud battery chirp and not the alarm, that I started to think more logically. I knew I had to take out the battery, but I am a short person and reaching the alarm is a bit of a challenge.

I was able to reach it by standing on my two-step stool, but the battery flap was too difficult to open. It was easier to untwist the alarm from its base and unplug it from the wiring instead. After I had the thing down, I was able to take out the battery.

When I checked online I discovered that I could have used a broom pole to push a button to shut the thing off, but it only stays off for a couple of hours. Then it starts beeping again, so that is not a useful remedy at night.

This got me thinking about the people I know who would not be able to take down their alarm. People who are shorter than me, people without step stools, people in wheelchairs, people who are frail. There are lots of us who might have to spend a whole night listening to a smoke alarm chirping if they don’t have someone nearby to help them out. Who would you call at almost-midnight to help you take out a smoke alarm battery? Exactly.

Anyway, this got me thinking that the smoke alarm system, as good as it is, is flawed. First of all, the law requires smoke alarms outside bedroom doors, but my bedroom door is so close to my kitchen that the alarm often goes off when I’m cooking. I know some people who have just taken the darned thing down and left it down because it is so annoying.

Secondly, the dead-battery-chirp can begin at any time, day or night. Shouldn’t a wired-in alarm with a battery back-up know what time it is? Everything else in my house that is wired in knows the time; why doesn’t this? It needs a chip of some sort to tell it not to chirp at night.

Thirdly, smoke alarms are always on the ceiling. Why can’t they be on a wall? I understand that smoke and heat rise, of course. I get that. But if the alarm repeatedly requires our attention, it needs to be more accessible.

The good news is that there was not a fire in my home and I did eventually get back to sleep. And, until some other arrangement is made, that smoke alarm is going to stay down.