One year old house, I thought it was amusing.
Much more common than you would imagine. . .
They might think that it will never go bad as long as its covered.
I saw 2 this week alone.
Ironiclly, yeasterday, about 60 people visited the Visitors Center I am building and one adamently asked to have the orange dust cap on the smoke detector painted a different color, for he thought that this was clashing with the false beams and ceiling of this 30 foot cathedrale ceiling. Had no clue that it was just a dust cap. Isn’t that amazing, to think that some of these people might be computer gurrus?!
Marcel 
:shock:
Reminds me of some “Living Room” furniture covers I saw occasionally growing up. 
It is very common around here in the older houses. Usually the Realtor tells the sellers that they need smoke detectors in each room, so they go out and buy them and stick them up, remembering then that they forgot to buy batteries. So they just leave them wrapped to remind themselves that they need batteries. Then they get involved in all sorts of other things and never buy the batteries or never put them in the detectors.
So many things to do in life, so little time.
well i see the logic. “SAFETY FIRST” right??. the Surgent General recommends those to prevent S.T.D.s.