Chester Gould, who created "Dick Tracy," was born on this day. His square-jawed detective character solved crimes and fought a host of criminal characters. Here's a page out of Gould's Crimestopper's Textbook: At 3 a.m., a family was rudely awakened when all of their smoke alarms went off at once. Rushing to investigate, Tracy first noted they were all hard-wired, so it wasn't a battery problem. Just then, he got a call on his wrist radio. Only two blocks away, another alarm was chirping. Rushing to the scene, Tracy noted that while this alarm was battery-operated, the batteries were fine and fully charged. Then, he noted that at both locations Mr. Dust had struck again. Indeed, when dust gets into the sensor chamber on both hard-wired and battery-operated detectors, it can set them off -- creating a smoke-alarm false alarm. The answer: vacuum them periodically and replace them every 10 years. And that's the On The House Tip for today.