Why does my smoke alarm detect the slightest bit of steam but no amount of cigarette smoke

The janitor in my building is really p1ssing me off because sometimes i forget to shut the door after a shower and 18 floors of 120 apartments has 3 fire engines instantly en route with decibels all over. He says that they must detect steam in case the flat downstairs is on fire and boiling my bath hahaha. What an idiot. "Where is their smoke detector you fooligan?"

the janitor is stupid. thats why he is a janitor. he is probly to lazy to change the malfunctioning fire alarms. unless they are heat sensing type fire alarms. the heat from the steam could be setting them off. or it may just think the steam is smoke. but non the less the alarm shouldn't be going off to steam.

the excuse is really stupid as well. the chances of a bath tub being filled with water constantly is like 1% or less. i think he just tells people that to keep them off his back. and he probley figures they and you are to stupid to know any better.

having a boilers degree ( if he has one) doesn't turn him into an engineer.

u could cover the alarm in ur room with clear plastic and buy ur own fire alarm. u just don't want the aparment owners and workers finding out ur covering ur alarm. just make sure u can hit the pull alarms if ur room does catch on fire.

Four most likely causes.

1. The smoke detector is too close to the shower
2. It is an ionization-type instead of photoelectric type
3. It is dirty
4. A combination of any of the above

If the neighbors detectors are in the same location with respect to the shower as yours and don't cause alarms, the alarms will be caused by 2, 3 or 4

lol, There are different fire detectors with different types of sensors, yours is a heat sensor , it sense heat not smoke. Steam is hot, cigarette smoke isn't