# Anyone know what to do with remains?



## Guest (Apr 10, 2011)

Just wondered if anyone else has ran into the situations we have the last few months and how they handled it. I have been doing debris removal at properties for 18 years. First for individuals and now for the last 11 years doing property preservation for companies. In all this time, I have never ran into human remains being left in the properties. In the last 6 months I have had two properties where the family remains have been left. The first, the national company we were doing the work for. I had us leave them in the urn in the house and contacted the previous owners and had them come back and remove them. This time the trashout is for an individual who is not a family member and I wondered if anyone knows the legal, proper procedure to take if the family will not claim them. So far it's all been creamated ashes. There are two in this house. I hope this isn't a sign of whats to come. Up until this year I always joked we had found everything in houses except for a dead body. Can't say that anymore.


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## Guest (Apr 10, 2011)

A call to the local crematorium may shed some light on the situation.


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## Guest (Apr 11, 2011)

If not the crematorium, you may try the local Sheriffs office as well.


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## Guest (Apr 11, 2011)

Had this a few times unfortunately. Call the sheriffs office ...they will normally refer you to the coroner's office. DO not dispose. I do have to admit that a crew kinda "knocked over" a vase once....
WTH is this one guy asked? After we told him he left. 

Kinda freaky leaving Uncle John or Aunt Susie behind!


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## Guest (Apr 11, 2011)

Sooner or later, if you do any inner city work especially, you will find a body. You will know as soon as you enter the home normally. You will never forget. The smell, The going to the police station, the fingerprints ..

The entire experience is sad and surreal. 

Kudos to the emergency workers and the homicide detectives that do this for a living. :thumbsup:


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## thanohano44 (Aug 5, 2012)

FremontREO said:


> Sooner or later, if you do any inner city work especially, you will find a body. You will know as soon as you enter the home normally. You will never forget. The smell, The going to the police station, the fingerprints ..
> 
> The entire experience is sad and surreal.
> 
> Kudos to the emergency workers and the homicide detectives that do this for a living. :thumbsup:


I hope to never come across one of these.


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## Guest (Apr 11, 2011)

Never had this situation before, but have had sites that had known graveyards. Usually small family plots. People used to bury their dead on there own property, so there are small family graveyards everywhere. 

The last couple of schools I did had known family graves. These are usually recorded on the property surveys along with names. Usually procedure is to notify any known family, and follow their wishes as to where to relocate to. Otherwise, the school board usually pays for plots in an established city or county cemetary, and the graves are moved. There is a local archaeologist who is hired to do this work. It is handled just like an archeological dig, with a staff of college kids with trowels and screens, etc. Usually they only find a few bone fragments and some of the brass hardware from the casket, if there was any. Usually fits in a shoe box.

Sometime around the turn of the century someone came up with a mail order Zinc casket that holds up a little better. One that we found had a glass window to the corpses face, Problem is the bottom of these tends to corrode thru in places, releasing some of the embalming fluids into the soil, but stays intact enough to hold some of it inside the casket as well. Then you are in a toxic wast situation, and all the regulations that come with that. 

Definitely a specialty trade, and one that I don't plan to get into. I got the guys number when I need him. 

Got some pictures somewhere:whistling May look for some tomorrow.


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## Guest (Apr 11, 2011)

Interesting Mudpad. Pics would be good. I'm not sure where you are located but we had a septic installer doing a new installation when he hit an Indian burial spot. All work got shut down and everything had to be removed and backfilled. There was a bunch of different government types there picturing and documenting for several hours (I wasn't able to be there when this was happening). Missed the excitement. 

I'll look for pics of the last house where we found a body. NO PICS of the BODY anyone so don't ask:thumbsup:

What was interesting was after the crime scene types were done and the house was "released" from crime investigation we had to go back to change the locks. We counted 136 "mysterious" holes in the walls, floors and ceilings that we never noticed when we ran out the home. Shotgun blast throughout the living room. "Dark spots" on the floors and an obvious trail out the rear door so more than 1 person got hit. 

Learned from the Police that the Laotian Gangs are ruthless


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## Guest (Apr 11, 2011)

Luckily where we are at is mostly rural. The only thing we have to worry about is walking into a meth lab or the neighbor shooting first and asking questions later which usually isn't a problem if you stop by and let someone know. By the time you get in the house, everyone within 5 miles knows what your doing and why. Thanks for the advice. I was going to try the local funeral home tomorrow and see what info they could give me and that sounds like the best plan. We almost didn't catch this one as they put dear old mom in a necklace. It was engraved was how we figured it out.


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## Guest (Apr 11, 2011)

Let us know. We get into Misserie every once in a while. Kc to chillicothe and north.


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## Guest (Apr 11, 2011)

Ill let you know what I find out today


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## BPWY (Apr 12, 2012)

Ya'll are freakin me out.


I hate funerals enough. I don't need to be findin no bodies!


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## Guest (Apr 13, 2011)

Finding creamated bodies doesn't freak me out. It just causes an inconvenience. I suppose finding a complete one might freak me out for a little bit. Finding the cooked cat in an oven complete with carving knife freaked me out. So far I haven't gotten an actual answer on my question outside the forum either. All I can get is everyone saying you can't just dispose of it. Well I'm definitely not going to just dispose of it but I'm not keeping someones mother either.


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## BPWY (Apr 12, 2012)

I found an action figure hung by the neck in a house once.

Dang racists.


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## Guest (Apr 13, 2011)

*Answer to my question from local funeral parlor*

For anyone interested, I received an answer from the local funeral parlor. If you own the property, you can dispose of it how you want either by burying it in the back yard or spreading the ashes. If you don't own the property such as in this case, it is the mortgage companies or property owners responsibility to find the previous occupant/owners and get the remains to them. They recommended making it the mortgage companies responsibility because if you dispose of the remains you are leaving yourself open to a mental distress lawsuit and you will probably lose. If the mortgage company won't or can't locate the people, you can contact local law authorities to see if they can locate the person so you can contact them to retrieve their family member. Otherwise he recommends storing it, just as you would personal property for a length of time to ensure they don't come back to claim it or try and sue.


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## BPWY (Apr 12, 2012)

If the service co/bank won't deal with it. 
I'd put it back into the house and tag it "remains".


Let the Realtor deal with it. 
P&P guys don't get paid enough to go to all that work.


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## Guest (Apr 14, 2011)

Better yet send it to the Service Company or Bank by certified mail (return receipt requested) and let them deal with it!!!


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## Guest (Apr 14, 2011)

BPWY said:


> If the service co/bank won't deal with it.
> I'd put it back into the house and tag it "remains".
> 
> 
> ...


Remains or OCCUPANT.....lol


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## Guest (Apr 14, 2011)

Oopsie. Never mind.


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## thanohano44 (Aug 5, 2012)

I'd refuse to do any work until that was handled. Or bid to handle of of that for $1500.


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## Guest (Apr 14, 2011)

My mother suggested mailing it to the mortgage company also. We were actually almost done with the job when we found it. This is for a realtor we have a really long close working relationship with so I didn't want to just stick her with it. We discussed it and she's going to have the mortgage company try and get ahold of they guy to claim it. In the meantime, we have a storage facility we store personal property in for 30 days when necessary and she asked if we could stick it in there for 30 days and then she's going to get rid of it just as if it was any other personal property.


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## Guest (Apr 14, 2011)

I found those pictures of some of the cemetary relocations we have had to do in the past, and thought about posting them. But then I thought- even though these are forgotten people, (they have to advertise and try to find descendants to see what they want to do with them, and they never found any) what if these were my great great grandmother and uncle Lester? Would I want somebody to paste pictures of their remains all over an open forum? 

I decided the answer was no. Sorry to disappoint any ghouls out there. :sad:


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