quietann

So a week before we move is a *great* time to have the fire alarms go off, credibly. (That is, all of them at once, ours and the upstairs neighbors', going off at once, which is probably required in the fire code by now but isn't how I'm used to them behaving.) I checked in with the upstairs guy, and neither of us saw smoke or anything likely to cause anything dangerous, but Calluna and I nonetheless got the cat into the carrier and go bag and purses outside, Just In Case. And called 911.

The fire guys (who have a fire station about 3 blocks from us so we get a hell of a lot of Fire Truck Noise) arrived just as the upstairs guy was solving the problem by starting to take down the smoke detectors, one by one. First one he tried was the relevant issue, which makes sense given as it was date-stamped 2007. (...yes.)

Lessons taken from this: a) I don't think the upstairs guy had the right approach to the problem -- that is, I think the fire guys should do that kind of conclusion making, and b) I need to do some practicing for an actual fire, clearly, because I dithered too much. Since I want to make sure we have reasonable fire exits in our upcoming basement (that's easy, there's huge windows that open and you can just crawl out) and the upcoming 2nd floor (not sure there), that'll just fold into the consideration.

Anyway, not to bury the lede, but we bought a house in Pepperell (on the border of NH, as opposed to where we are now on the border of RI), it's cool, we're having the movers next Monday, will quite likely have to do a smallish truck (or van) the weekend after for remaining stuff, dislike packing vociferously, but! we can finally get the Stuff From Storage from when we stuck it there like 5 years ago.

More about this soon, or, as is more likely given me, more much later.