Your things leave on a list.

Why contents come out at all

You cannot dry a room around a sofa, and soot cleaning has to reach the surface underneath everything. Where the affected area is small, contents get moved and covered on site. Where it is not, they leave.

The inventory is the point

Every item is photographed and entered on a list before it is boxed, with its condition noted. That list goes to your adjuster with the rest of the file.

This is where contents claims go wrong for people. Six weeks later, nobody remembers what was in the spare room, and a carrier will not pay for an item nobody can evidence.

Cleaned by what it is made of

Soot on a ceramic vase and soot on a wool rug are two different jobs. Textiles, hard goods, electronics and documents each get a different process, and anything that cannot be brought back is listed as a loss rather than quietly returned dirty.

Stored, then returned

Cleaned contents stay in storage until the property is dry, finished and ready for them. On the way back in, everything is checked against the same list it left on.