I play on xbox 360 and I have looked everywhere on the internet and I cannot find a straight forward solution/answer anywhere. I am wondering if weapons and shields dropped by NPCs upon death clean up properly or if they remain on the ground until you clean them up. I know that a simple solution is to clean the weapons up and place them on a body, as they well be deleted when the body goes away, but that solution is a massive damper on RPing for me. If I wait 30 in game days will the dropped weapons and armor go away or am I going to have to start physically cleaning up after each battle?

As mentioned, I play on Xbox 360 so mods and the unofficial patch are not an option for me.

EDIT: I am aware that most indoor cells respawn so cleaning up isn't necessary, my question is aimed mostly at wondering if weapons and shields dropped in the wild clean up.

Try holding RB-LB and X while loading up Skyrim. It's rumoured that this clears everything like that in-game.

Weapons and shields "clean up" on my xbox version of the game.

Meh, I just play janitor, even if it's not strictly required---I don't want to get 200 hours into a character, and then the save-game breaks because of all the floating items.

I generally clean up. I get floating weapons otherwise. While I did just get the "Legendary" disc about 3 week's ago, any patches that were not included on it I don't have, that may be the difference. My old disc only had the patches required to run Dawnguard and it didn't "clean up" weapons and shields either.

In my experience (PS3), I've noticed some clean themselves up while others randomly stay there forever, or until I pick it up. So, it's just random for me. I just wish you could personally keep a broom handy and clean up ash piles...

I saw a tip here the other day about cleaning up any weapons or shields after battle will lighten up your save file a bit and I have noticed a difference since I started doing this the other day. My game has since seemed less laggy and freezes significantly less often.

Weapons and shields typically only clean up if they are equipped (attached) to the dead NPCs' inventory. Otherwise, they will most likely remain in the game forever and may eventually cause severe save game bloating, which often leads to lagging, freezing and other performance issue in the game. Unless you play on PC and use the Unofficial Patches, you have to clean them up on your own.

Also, weapons in interior areas will not clean up by themselves either, even if the dungeon has respawned. This has been tested and proven to happen just like in wilderness (exterior) areas.

Yeah. I've never had any problems with this.

I just make a point to clean all weapons and shields now and either hold on to them for selling or store them on one dead NPC before I leave that particular cell.

For what it's worth, I play on PC and had asked a similar question on this forum not long ago. The response was that they went away after a period of time. That said, I still pass by all kinds of junk on the roads while traveling and none of which were left from any battle I was involved in.

After the 1.9 revision this had gone away but now it's back and I have no idea why.

Like the OP I didn't sign on to be the janitor...

Loose weapons and shields from enemies will not clean up. I once visited Arc Windpoint only yo find at least 20-30 Ancient Nord Swords and about 10-15 Iron Shields. As well as the occasional Ebony weapon.

I still clean it regardless.

Not to hijack the thread, but can anyone confirm if this is an issue on PC with all the unofficial patches installed? I'd hate my save games to get bloated cause of something this silly.

From my understanding, the unofficial patches fixed it.

You'll notice a difference with the Unofficial Patches. Before, when you went to pick up a weapon left by a bandit, you would get the option to "Take Iron Sword". Now, that weapon is considered part of the bandit, so you will get the option to "Search Bandit", instead.

I imagine that has something to do with them cleaning up.

Yeah, I've noticed that. Just didn't know about all the junk I drop. Like if I'm over encumbered I'll drop the 400 pairs of leather boots I was saving for a rainy day, but I'll stop doing that if it clutters up my save.