Unfiltered Story #274290

On our first day in a beach house we rented in San Diego, my sister and I go to the beach alone while my parents go to a restaurant. They walk us down to the beach, and on the way out of our house we spot a fire on one of those electrical line towers. This is directly outside our house. Somebody else had already called the fire department, so we leave for the beach. My sister later decides she needs to change into her swimsuit, so we go back to the house. We pass fire trucks and people working on it, and head inside. We mess with the light switch for a while, before we realize the power is out. Suddenly a loud beeping noise shrieks through the house. Both startled out of our minds, my sister and I try to figure out what it is. We text our parents, and they said that if we’re worried we can go back to the beach or to the restaurant that they’re at (without mentioning they’re at a 21+ bar, which we find out later). I worry it’s the carbon monoxide alarm and since I’ve brought my pet mouse with I begin to panic. This is about when my sister gets extremely mad at me, I think she thought I was overreacting about my mouse, but I’ve heard a carbon monoxide alarm before. I was 95% sure this was it. We put my mouse in the car, and go out to the people outside. We ask one of the workers if he knows why our house is beeping and he says “it probably has to do with the power being out. That comes back on around midnight.” Gee, thanks. We can also hear distant beeps all over the place, so we figure if it was related to the power being out, our neighbors houses would be beeping too. Luckily our neighbor comes out and we ask him if his house is beeping. His helpful response, after we watched him walk out of his door, was “uhh I dunno, haven’t checked.” So we sit around for a bit, not really sure what to do. Then I see another worker. I ask him if he knows anything, since the last two answers were useless. He pretty much informed me “it’s whatever alarm system you have in your house”. I told him it’s a rental and we don’t know, and he just grunted and went away. So we brave going into the house to get our shoes, and go to the restaurant. The whole time, my sister is extremely angry at me and I’m quietly relaying directions to her. We eventually make our way to the restaurant, only to find a huge “you must be 21 years or older to enter” sign. Our parents come out and we head back to the house. I check on my mouse when we get back, much to my sisters anger, and then we spend five minutes or so trying to figure out where it’s coming from. My sister eventually points to a small thing plugged into the wall. What is it? It’s a fricking carbon monoxide alarm. There isn’t actually carbon monoxide, it’s beeping because the power is out. She rolls her eyes and mutters “I told you there wasn’t any carbon monoxide in the house”. She seriously thought I was wrong because I said the carbon monoxide alarm was going off, and it was, and I shouldn’t have thought there was a poisonous gas in the house even though the alarm was going off. Later she got some food and she was fine. Moral of the story: never be around my sister when she’s hangry. Also don’t worry about your pet mouse even when the carbon monoxide alarm is going off, apparently.