If you heard a neighbours smoke alarm at 2am.

[Smokealarmwakeup]

Name changed for this.

I was woken up by a beeping, I realised it was a neighbours smoke alarm. I immediately woke up DP and asked him to go knock on the door (my foot is in a cast and I’m really slow on my crutches as my hands are blistered). He point blank refused as “nobody wants waking up at 2am”.

I got straight out of bed and went round to knock on the door to see if they were awake and all was ok, if they didn’t answer I would have called 999. They answered the door and all was fine, their teenager had burnt toast and they couldn’t stop the alarm.

On return DP is saying I look like a nosey neighbour and I was ridiculous for going round. He is also grumpy I woke him because he won’t get back to sleep now.

Was IBU for going round and knocking on the door at 2am? DP genuinely thinks it was an extreme reaction!

Not everyone is woken by the noise of a smoke alarm. There was something a few years back that showed children are more likely to be woken by their mother's voice than a smoke alarm. www.irishtimes.com/news/science/mother-s-voice-more-likely-to-wake-child-than-smoke-alarm-study-1.3675307

You dh sounds like a bag of dicks. Dont make up excuses for him. He is an arse.

Right thing to do

You did the right thing and you’re a good neighbour. Does your DH think people are only meant to respond to alarms in their own houses?

You could have saved their lives. We need more people like you.

Of course he did.

You sound like a lovely neighbour but a naive wife.

We had a house fire in the 90's and our neighbours woke us up by yelling towards the upstairs windows. House fires happen, Yanbu.

I remember our house alarm going off in the middle of the night and 2 of my neighbours (from separate houses) came running over.

Although it was just a glitch with the alarm I was really glad they came over as so many people ignore things like that these days, when people might need genuine help.
I think you were right to say go over and knock on.

He's not.

If you can hear next doors smoke alarm, you can be damn sure they have heard it too. Knocking on the door at 2am to tell someone something they clearly already know is pretty stupid

Had it been a fire your actions could have saved lives. His would have let them burn and the fire may have spread to neighbouring properties.

I was on the school run, and heard a fire alarm going off in a house I was walking up to. It kept going and I started getting worried.

I banged on the door and got no answer so went round the back and banged on that door. If there had been no answer I was ready to ring 999. Luckily the owner was there and told me the alarm had dust in it from a diy job he was doing and he was trying to get it to stop. He was very grateful that I'd bothered to check.

But plenty of people can sleep through smoke alarms. Particularly children. Do you want to take the risk just because you think they probably already know?

And what if there had been no one in, yet smoke could be seen - better to be asleep and let it burn? (maybe with pets inside that might be able to be saved with a fire brigade attending? Or a smashed window so they could escape?)
or may someone who slept through the alarm - heavy sleeper/partially deaf ?
or someone with early onset dementia who became very disoriented and didn’t know what to do?

no, op did the right thing. Dh was an idiot.

yanbu You did the right thing 👍