Are your smoke alarms working?

Do you have smoke alarms in your house? Do they work well and if they work well, what type do you have? If they don’t work well or you don’t have them, why?

Eleven people just died in a house fire here and this sad event prompted my question.

We have smoke alarms but we have taken out the batteries because they go off every time we cook a piece of toast or anything. I am going to put them back in because it bothers me that they aren’t working. However, I have tried many different types, but they don’t seem to work very well and I wonder if other people have this experience with them? I wonder how many homes are out there with smoke alarms on the ceiling that have no batteries in them?