For reference, I just went back and relooted the whole town (Gvozdno) and basically it is all the same loot.

I am sure about this because as I looted the town originally I called out most of the things I found to other members of my squad on TeamSpeak in case they wanted any of it. The majority of things I didn't interact with, but if nothing is cleaning it up for a whole 24 hours it seems like something is broken.

Played on "DayZ UK 4-073 - Hosted by Fragnet.net - Persistence Enabled" last night from 9:00PM to 11:00PM Eastern. I played again today on the same server a few hours ago and I discovered something puzzling:

Unless a remarkable coincidence happened, the same loot was in two buildings more than 16 hours later. The reason this stands out to me is that I interacted with 3 of the 4 pieces of loot, which I would think would cause them to despawn. I would have thought they would despawn even without interaction after 16 hours, but I don't know what to expect for items not interacted with. Anybody know what is intended?

As for the items:
The Bible. I picked it up to see if it could be read. I could not figure out how to read it.
A sewing kit. I used it to repair my hunting jacket. In the process the sewing kit went from worn to badly damaged.
A blue hoodie which I picked up to see if it was better than a spare coat I had in my bag. It was damaged so I swapped it back out.
A red bucket hat. I didn't interact with this one, but I did notice it.

So, again, in the only two buildings I rechecked, the 4 pieces of loot that were there when I signed off last night were also there more than 16 hours later. Same exact items and same exact condition unless a truly remarkable coincidence occurred.