I woke up to the smell of smoke in my bedroom.
I lived alone in my house, so I knew there wasn’t anyone smoking.
I checked the bathroom to make sure I hadn’t left the curling iron turned on. I went to the kitchen to see if there was something there that could have been left on. I ended up going back to my bedroom because that was where I smelled the smoke the strongest. I headed over to the bed, and I realized the odor was coming from the air vents. I got down on the floor and was close to the air vent. I couldn’t see any smoke, but there was definitely the odor of something burning coming from the air vent. I called the HVAC company and told them I could smell smoke and they said they would send someone out to the house. Fifteen minutes later, I not only had the HVAC company at the house, but I had a fire truck outside. The HVAC tech told me they called the fire company in case there was a fire inside the chimney. They went into the basement and checked the furnace and checked to make sure there were no hot spots on the ductwork. They even went outside to look at the air conditioning unit, in case someone had dropped a cigarette near it and the grass caught on fire. The only thing they found was that the neighbor was burning leaves. They found a crack in the ductwork where the smoke was coming through and it was being carried through the ductwork and up to the air vent. I felt so foolish having a fire truck and a HVAC service van in my driveway, because of the neighbor’s leaves.