Love the part where they make it rain, traditional Guanxi China style.
I really don’t see a plausible explanation for how that might happen. In the end it’s just toluene. Not great to inhale regularly of course, but not incredibly dangerous either.
People inhale it for fun, and deaths seem rare enough to be the topic of papers when they happen (here, here, here, and here). Whatever fumes might have built up, it doesn’t seem very likely that they’d be able to kill one let alone two people like that, without the other being able to drag them out of the room or call for help. I can see one person feeling nauseous/dizzy or even fainting, but two people dying?
If this were really a problem, people would be dropping dead all the time from occupational and recreational exposure, and they’re not. 
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By the time toluene is a problem from being toxic, lighting a cigarette would prove far more deadly than the poison itself. Stuff is pretty flammable.
Maybe there’s something else.
A quick google does turn up a few cases where death has been linked to toluene, not many though which is odd as it’s a commonly used/abused substance.
I assume it’s heavier than air, maybe that contributed.
Yeah, that’s exactly the point I was making in the next paragraph - hardly anyone dies even with deliberate recreational exposure, so it’s difficult to see how two Taiwanese guys suddenly and simultaneously keeled over from occupational exposure while decorating an apartment.
Contaminated product.
Different product poured into empty can.
Chemical reaction with something on exposure.
Are they going to investigate deep, do extensive autopsies?
My money is on the news not caring in a day or 2 and no real answer being found. It would be expensive to really check even the easy variables, who would pay?
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I wish my school days would’ve been that exciting 
Yeah obviously there’s probably more chemicals involved.
I spray guitars fairly often, and the stuff I spray has worse things than toluene. Me and the cats should have been dead several times over.
Also most houses aren’t that well sealed to begin with. Unless you’re spraying the stuff with the windows closed, but even then you’ll feel like crap before you just keel over. I mean gallons of the stuff.
Or maybe it’s nitrogen? You can keel over and die without realizing it if it displaces enough oxygen. Argon will do the same too. But they had to be welding with fairly large cups and gas flows for this to be a problem. I mean nitrogen is used for purging for brazing refrigerant lines, and argon for Tig welds. But if they saw gas cylinders they would have suspected that.
What if it was because they were lying on the floor to assemble the bed, and the concentration was higher there?
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If the materials used by decorators to decorate apartments can kill decorators, what on earth are those materials doing in our living spaces?
Guy
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It’s probably one of those rubber cement type glue used to glue laminates to plywood.
Thing is these things stink to high heaven. There’s no way you’re sticking around if the concentration is dangerous.
Might want to know what autopsy reveal because if may be something else, or some comorbidity.
I think tempogain is mention a concentration in a closed spot, such as a bed frame. Quite a good idea to look into, and it can blow away instantly once moving things to investigate
Not the best example, but perhaps a somewhat easy example. Like co2 poisoning. It concentrates in areas and if a person gets in it, lights out. This is actually a common issue with certain mining, chemical manufacturing etc. A small cloud of xyz chemical floats in and knocks people out.
No idea, but the idea seems worthy of looking into if anyone is seriously trying to figure it out. It would also be the absolute perfect excuse not to look further amd stamp some papers 
That’s for stuff with no smell, like carbon monoxide or inert gas displacing oxygen. You go in there it’s instant lights out.
Toluene smells quite strong, and long before you start dying you’re going to feel very sick. Unless they’ve had symptoms and just kept ignoring them. It’s not unlikely. You start feeling symptoms, you get out and get some fresh air, you’ll normally be fine. But if you keep ignoring the intense headache and work through it, it’s possible they lost consciousness and then continued exposure killed them.
I mean there’s gases like hydrogen sulfide that smells quite bad at low concentrations, but at lethal concentration it destroys your nerves so you can’t smell it anymore. I don’t know if toluene does that.
Cyanide also has no smell except for some it smells like almond. But when you start having symptom it’s too late unless you get treated for it (administer antidote for it basically like sodium thiosulfate I believe).
I have been warned again and again NOT to paint my apartment as it will kill me/my pets/the neighbors.
I ask myself the same question: what the heck are they using and why are they using it where people live?!
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Stuff I spray contains toluene, xylene, acetone, and who knows what else. It probably contains some methyl isocyanate too, which is nasty stuff.
I’m not dead. I wear PPE when I spray that stuff though.
There are, my office neighbour assured me, nontoxic paints that can and should be requested (for an additional fee, of course—the toxic ones are apparently cheaper!).
Guy
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An anecdote, sure. But a real life issue. I am in the exotic pet industry for 30 years. Know many people that keep all sorts of walks of life. It is not an uncommon scenario for renovations to end up in entire breeding rooms dead within 24h. People have lost millions on this. Not to make it financial, obviously our larger body size and slower death spirals are an important consideration.
Off gaming when curing etc is very serious. Which is why I mentioned above consider the variables, not just strictly toluene poisoning via inhalation.
Again, who will pay the millions of dollars in investigation, cleaning, separating, testing etc? My guess is no one, and it’s easier to sweep it under the flrug than actually find the cause. Whi h seems par for the course
WTF!
Guy
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