Disability is dangerous

cracker

Last night, in the middle of the night, all the hard-wired fire/smoke detectors went off. There no heat and no fire. They screamed. 
I had to call the Fire Department to come and disconnect them.

If they go off again( they think one may be defective), I cannot reach them to turn them off. If I must do that, I have to stand on a step stool and I will fall. I also have to be able to change their batteries.

The alarms will wake up the entire neighborhood, and sometimes the Fire Department is busy with fires and cannot come. 

These hard-wired detectors are legally necessary. I am tempted jut to put the covers on and leave the wires disconnected and put up some detectors I can handle. By law, they must be quite near the ceiling, and I have 10-foot ceilings.

Has anyone some advice?

exdvr

Hi @cracker....I had the same thing happen last week with an alarm and all I could do at the time was to flick off the mains circuit that suppled the alarms, which also turned off half of the lighting in the house including the bathroom which is needed regularly at night.    It was repaired in minutes within a couple of days but was not only worrying but highly inconvenient at the time.  Our landlord treated it as an urgent but not an emergency repair job.  If it hadn't been a rental property I'm not sure how I could have handled the situation.  Hard-wiring may very well be a legal requirement but yes they cause serious problems for the disabled.

Best wishes.

cracker

Thanks @exdvr, I am glad to know I am not the only one. I am tempted to get a friend to put up the smoke detector covers only, not wire them and dismantle the batteries. I have 7 of my own which I can handle by myself.

I wonder if this issue falls under Reasonable Accommodation?