Smoke Detector.

EVERY apartment I have lived in here at school has had the same thing happen around this time of year. I will be studying/sleeping/cleaning/doing something when suddenly a high pitched beep! will come from my ceiling. I'll ignore it. Hours later, I will hear the beep! again, and a few hours later it'll go off again.
It has happened in the dorms, last year at Alpine Village, and now at this apartment.
I reached up and took the battery out... that should do it, right? No. Wrong. It continues to beep!. Each beep! drives me closer and closer to insanity until I can't take it anymore, grab a chair, reach up and try to rip it out of the ceiling. ...
As I am looking at my smoke detector now, dangling helplessly from the ceiling by one little cord and no battery, I see something scary.... one little red light (somehow it still has power) and I know... that when I least suspect it... that thing is going to beep!.