Fire Alarm Checks

Preforming fire alarm tests in each unit serves two purposes.
One) To make sure the alarm works, obviously.
Two) To check out what condition the apartment is in, obviously.

Going door-to-door, stepping over tenants dirty clothes, and getting on my tip-toes, using the end of a pencil to push a button, only to be deafen by a LOUD ear piecing beep--is not my idea of fun.
But, what I discover during my checks is almost always worth the ringing I hear in my ears for the next two days.

---
I was nearing my last apartment.
I knocked on the door, twice, hard.
No one answered.
I cracked the door, made my presence known, loudly, before I stepped in.
I closed the door behind me, and walked over to the fire alarm.
As I reaching up, a cat appeared from the hallway and curled himself around my leg.

I called the tenant.

Me: "I see you have a cat."
Tenant: "I don't have a cat."

Fact: I am not blind. 
---

I came to a door and there posted was a note from the tenant that read

"You do NOT have my permission to enter this apartment. My fire alarm works great. DO NOT ENTER."

I gave more than twenty-four hour notice, and I was legally allowed to enter.
I walked in.
I figured this tenant must be a bachelor as all he had in his apartment was a bed, a desk with a large TV, and a chair.
Well that, and about two months worth of fast food wrappers scattered across his floor.
It appeared that he didn't own a trashcan.
I stepped through the trash and into the hallway where his fire alarm was supposed to be.
It was missing.
I then spotted it on the counter.
I picked it up, and noticed that he had removed the batteries.

I replaced the batteries, and then left him a note on his door saying that he needed to clean up his apartment.

Kinda hard for the fire alarm to work when it doesn't have batteries.