That's what I thought of. "Weird Al" Yankovic's parents were both found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning about 15 years back in a very similar fashion.
CO poisoning during cold still weather is not uncommon in old/poor houses heated by gas or oil here in western Europe. What is the weather like in, I assume California, now?
Also people who warm up in idling cars, in semi confined spaces,on nights with no breeze. I've seen a couple local news stories of this. It's very sad.
Yes but people forget to check them. A new threat could be cheapo detectors from Amazon. I bought a house recently and the fire marshall had them replace all their Amazon crap detectors with the real deal.
Shitty detectors; people simply forget to check on them or don't bother to install one in the first place or don't even know they should have one; expired detectors that don't work anymore but also don't alert that they're non-functional. Plus, older people tend to get worse at maintaining out-of-the-way stuff like that, more forgetful, harder to get around, may visit entire sections of their house (like a basement) almost never so just forget about it or don't notice signs that something needs to be replaced or repaired.
Check on your parents' smoke and CO detectors next time you visit!
And even if they do have them, they degrade over time and only last around 10 years tops. It's quite possible that the ones they had failed, and failed silently. Such as loss.
I bought my parents a few CO detectors for Christmas a few years ago. I reminded them that they don't have any gas appliances, but they do heat with wood.
