Chinese Audio Torture vs. The Sound of Silence

So here is a little peek into my homelife over the last six days...

Thursday night one of my smoke alarms started to beep. Not the adorable cricket-chirp of a regular alarm with a dying battery, but a bit more aggressive. It was about 10pm, so I called my (tall) downstairs neighbor to attend to the situation. Minutes later, Holger, the Nordic (?) neighbor arrives at my door, stepladder in hand. His boyfriend/partner is short, too, he's used to "my kind."

He climbs up on the ladder and removes the majority of the smoke detector. At this point, we both think that this will solve the problem. Alas...

About a half hour later, it starts beeping again. It's almost eleven and I can't bring myself to call the neighbors again. Holger leaves for work at 6:30 every morning (did I mention that I'm a pseudo-light-sleeper and can hear his Jeep backing out of the driveway?). So I decide to bear it. (note the non-use of the term "grin and bear it." There is no grinning to be had.)

All. Night. Long. Randomly. For random amounts of time. The alarm sounds. There are no fires in the apartment. There is clearly something going on. Beeeeeeeeeep. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. Beeep. There is no method, only madness. It reminds me of when you're getting a hearing test and they play different length beeps into each ear; low and quiet. I don't know how often or how long or HOW LOUD the beeps will be in my current scenario/nightmare.

One night in and I'm already nutty as a fruitcake. I see how sleep deprivation is a form a torture.

It's Friday morning and I'm looney. I call and email my landlord to alert him to the problem. I don't hear from him and can only hope that he has fixed the problem.

I arrive home on Friday night to the sound of silence. I think/hope that he's been the apartment to solve the near-crisis. I revel in the sound of...NOTHING. No beeping, no bleating...just the sound of my cat purring me to sleep.

Pseudo fast forward to Saturday afternoon...beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. Oh. No. PLEASE don't tell me that it is starting again. I eventually go out to a BBQ...only to come home to...beeeeeeeeep. Beep. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. I am beginning to understand the concept of torture. I cannot listen to this sound anymore.

I get an email from my landlord - I should talk to his brother because he is "out of town." I call his brother on Sunday morning. At this point, I am near delirious. I truly and completely understand how sleep deprivation/random loud sounds can throw people into insanity. Eventually the brother returns the call and comes over. I am giggly and pray for the best. He thinks it's an old smoke detector unit. He leaves and comes back 30 minutes later with a "new" unit. (those quotation marks will come into play later)

He replaces the unit. For 30 to 45 minutes, it's pure bless. Not a beep in the house. I turn to the dictionary and look up "False sense of security" and see a picture of myself there. Then, it beeps twice and falls silent. For hours. Into the night.

At 4:15am, the beeping returns. Timing is everything. I unscrew the new unit from the ceiling. I am on the verge of tears and jam some earplugs into my ears and hope that I can hear the alarm go off at 7 am. This is, literally, insanity. I have not really slept a full night in days and am really going nutty.

I eventually get in touch with the Landlord Brother (did I mention that my landlord is in Uruguay?? What the hell is anyone doing there??) and BEG him to come back. He keeps insisting that since the unit is unscrewed, that it can't possibly be beeping. I tell him (again) that this is NOT a figment of his imagination.

Long story short - I come home to the entire unit being removed from the apartment...and hopefully a full night of sleep....