I am an advocate for a  Seniors Tenant Association in my apartment complex.  Recent extended alarm testing sessions  covering 2 days,  6 to 6 1/2 hours each day, approximately every 5 minutes in each apartment, so over 12 hours of decibel exposure !  The  management screwed up on the notification of said testing dates and times!   So 198 apartments,  4 floors of apartments with that 12 hours of exposure levels, both residents and their pets were exposed to this most miserable torture !   What can be done for the next annual testing to avoid this extreme exposure which has caused headaches, earaches, a couple people complained about vertigo, nausea but no seizures, thank God !

Are you testing the domestic smoke alarms in each flat or are they heat detectors in  each flat connected to a communal fire alarm?

No excuse for continuous sounding, the engineers should be using the control panel 'walk test' that automatically shuts off the sounders after a few seconds when a device is tested.In some panels the 'walk test' is actually silent so the sounder testing can be left to a particular (although slightly more prolonged) period at the end of the testing