Having recently experienced a house fire that destroyed a good portion of my personal belongings, I thought it fitting to discuss personal belongings as it relates to crime scene cleanup.

During the crime scene cleanup process or any cleanup process following a trauma or accident involving blood or bodily fluids, technicians will come across contaminated personal belongings.  Often, crime scene cleanup technicians will receive a “blanket” authorization from the home owner or responsible party to discard anything they deem to be contaminated.  Sometimes this contamination may only consist of a few drops of blood in a crack or crevice that’s hard to get to.It is not uncommon, when dealing with items such as computer equipment, TVs, VCRs, DVD players and other electronic equipment to simply declare the items unsalvageable.  They are tagged as bio-hazards and sent off to be destroyed.  It happens every day across the country, often with little regard for what’s in the best interest of the family.

Following the fire, which was largely contained to the garage, a fire restoration company was called in to do what we do as crime scene cleanup professionals . . . restore the scene by eliminating all traces of the event.  Upon sifting through the items declared to be unsalvageable, well over 150 pieces, I realized that some of it could be salvaged.  These items consisted of valuable possessions, both of a sentimental and monetary nature.  As I learned more about the process followed by the fire restoration company, I discovered that all of the salvageable items would be taken to a warehouse where they would be cleaned and restored.  Upon asking why some of the unsalvageable items would not be cleaned and restored, I was told that it would just take too much time and effort.

Who’s right is it to decide whether or not too much time and effort would be required to clean an item that I deem important?  Likewise, when we clean a crime or trauma scene, who are we to decide when it’s not worth the time or added effort to find a way to access the cracks and crevices to remove a bio-hazardous element?  I say it’s not up to us to decide.  The owner or next of kin should be the deciding factor.

As an industry, we have been too quick to mark personal possessions as unsalvageable.  Time and time again, family members call our companies to find out where a particular item was taken.  And time and time again, we tell them it was contaminated and destroyed.  From baseball card collections to big screen TVs, if it has blood on it, it must be destroyed.

So my collection of Star Wars figures isn’t worth much any more.  The protective plastic sleeves certainly didn’t fair too well against the raging inferno in my garage.  But, I didn’t want to part with them and they weren’t to be thrown in the garbage.  For whatever reason, possibly nostalgia, I wanted them cleaned off and returned to me.

From one cleanup professional to all those who read this post, please make sure the family members of a deceased person give you permission to destroy the personal possessions of a loved one.  If at all possible, take the extra time to clean and restore as many possessions as possible so that the family of the deceased doesn’t lose more than they have to.  Quite often, insurance will not cover the replacement cost of these items.  Even though it may cost the family a little more money to have an item cleaned and restored, more often than not, many families will want to assume this added cost.

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