I arrived at Mrs M's expecting to either fit or replace a smoke alarm on her ceiling, but discovered her main problem was a series of bleeping alarms on different floors of her home. At first it took a while to identify which units were actually bleeping - cue both of us standing silently in her hallway waiting for something to bleep and then trying to pinpoint the source...strangely not as easy as it sounds (excuse that pun), with the 40 second gap between bleeps not helping.

One the misbehaving units had been identified, it was a case of getting up the ladder and replacing the batteries in two of her units - a third was also happily chirping away, but upon removal from the ceiling I discovered the battery couldn't be replaced and suggested to Mrs M she contact the manufacturer to find out what to do with that one.

Before leaving we both stood on the stairs and waited...and waited...for a bleep or two...but silence now reigned, which we both happily agreed was the right outcome.