Ellis family story from eons ago

October 19, 2007:
So, about 4 weeks ago, a smoke alarm ran out of batteries in the Ellis home. Little did they know (Stranger than Fiction... anyone?) what trauma this would cause. The smoke alarm beeped once a minute, every minute, in the high pitched tone that smoke alarms have. Upon searching for the alarm, The Dean and The Anna(rexic) found no visible smoke alarm, but there was definitely still a loud beep. They timed when the beeps were so they would best be able to guess where it was coming from. 60 seconds, a beep. 60 seconds, another beep. Then the situation then exposed itself. When the house was contructed 6 years ago, the electrician was required to install smoke alarms in the unfinished basement. For some reason, he installed them in the rafters of the ceiling. Later, the insulators came and paid no attention to the smoke alarms, insulating over them. One year ago, The Dean sheetrocked over the insulation. The basement, as we know, is finished, painted, carpeted, and until 4 weeks ago, quiet. Now, for three weeks the beeping continued. Faint when upstairs, but steady. The thought occurred to The Anna, "Smoke alarms are connected electricity, which means that the alarm will never stop, until a new battery gets installed." The beeping finally got the best of Anna, and she convince The Dean to drill a 3" hole in the ceiling where the beep was coming from. (right by the window in the theater). He stuck his arm in, fished around, had tea and crumpets, and came out without a smoke alarm. They closed their eyes, listened again, and decided the noise was actually coming from a different area, about three feet away. Again, a hole, an arm in the whole, searching, and all to no avail. 17 holes later, the Ellis family has no smoke alarm, a very frustrated set of parents, and a continued beeping, mocking their feeble attempts. Plus, there are at least 2 more undetected smoke detectors in the basement, but their batteries are still good, and neither one is visible. It seems like a problem that Dumbledore alone would know the answer to.

October 26, 2007:
Ok. The Ellis family shamefully and gittily reveals the secret to the mystery of the beep. After 25 holes in the ceiling (yes, they continued) Anna speculated that the smoke alarm was neglected, and not installed, but instead left in the floor joists. If this theory proved correct, that meant that as soon as the battery lost all it's spunk, the beeping would indeed stop. So she called the alarm company. They told her that if, in fact, the smoke alarm had no power it would stop beeping after 44,000 beeps. They figured this out to be about 30 days from when it started. After pondering, they discovered that the said 30 days would expire on or around October 27th, the day of the Homecoming celebration of their 2nd favorite daughter, Amanda. So they decided to patch up the holes, rather seamlessly. They sat, anxiously awaiting the beeping's end, but nothing. Then one night, while watching a movie, the good for nothing brother validated his existence. Everytime he heard a beep, there seemed to be a little red light flashing near the baseboard of the room, directly below (I mean DIRECTLY, not even one inch off) the original hole and speculated target, there was a box. A small, white box that had been plugged into the outlet in the wall. This box was not an ordinary box. It was, in fact, a carbon monoxide detector. Now, in the Ellis family's defense, many people had been in the basement, heard the beep and concluded that it came from the ceiling. Now when you hear a bird chirp, do you look towards the ground? No. Much like how Jim trains Dwight to react in a certain way to a a certain sound, the sound of a smoke alarm cause the Ellis Clan to look upwards. After tears of laughter and frustration, sleepless nights by one, Allie Thompson (who slept with her head less than two feet away from the culprit), and hours of ceiling repair work, the puzzle of the unsolved beeper has officially been solved. The Ellis home has enjoyed silence for nearly 3 hours. Amen.