The other alternative I thought was to own the units, but go off the grid by installing enough solar panels (perhaps with battery backup for storage) to supply electricity to 240v dryers and washing machines.  

Not that long ago I changed all the smoke detector batteries in my own house, some more than once, before eventually finding some Verizon box sporadically beeping in my basement.

The batteries tend to last I long time in them.

Get rid of old 9 volt smoke detectors and get the ones with the new lithium batteries that do t need changed for ten years .

You put a battery in them and there is a blinking light plus it comes with a sign stating that there are surveillance cameras.  

It sounds like roofs do not have anything quite so simple as a battery life indicator.

Oh yeah; put fresh batteries into the thermostat if they need these.It's a whooole lot easier to do these things when the units are empty than when you get a call in the middle of the night.Gail

Missing my 80v battery and charger for my chainsaw.

I did a quick background and found he's been in jail for assault with a deadly weapon, child abuse with weapon, 2 counts of battery, he's a sexual predator, and violation of probation. 

So I googled his name and yep, he had 2 arrest records in 2018, one of which was "battery by strangulation".