If somebody dies in my house, should I plan to be staying at a hotel?
<p>In the event that somebody dies at my house, is it going to turn into a crime scene? I am thinking here of situations like George Michael's death, where somebody just dies, but there is no obvious cause of death, so obviously the police have latitude to decide whether it is a "suspicious" or "non-suspicious" death. Since there is no coroner's report, they have no way to know whether it is natural causes or not.</p>

<p>So, my concern is that my house turns into a big evidence collection nightmare, does that mean I have to leave and stay in a hotel while they are "documenting" the scene? How long will that take?</p>

<p>Police are required to "secure" evidence of a crime.  They can remove you from a crime scene if they consider that necessary to secure it.  They will subsequently obtain a warrant to search the scene.  Once it starts that search can go on for as long as they want, unless you can convince a judge that they are behaving unreasonably.</p>

<p>(I hope to return to add citations to this when I have more time.)</p>

united-states death