Wallpaper and Wallcoverings - border adhesive removal: nothing is working

Whoever put up the first strip of border must have used rubber cement or some type of glue as it won't come off. The rest of the room stripped off with little effort. We have a 15 foot area that we got the actual vinyl border off and the glue is left. We have tried Downy, dishsoap, WD40, De Solv It, DIF gel and lots and lots of scraping (plastic putty knife, nylon scrubbie, green scrubbie, metal wallpaper scoring tool). We have to get this residue off, most of the paper has come off but this hard stuff is left. Please help if you know what else we could try. The wall is drywall and has been painted once. I think this border has been up for 10 years (since the house was built). Thanks!

Sounds like they used Vinyl-Over-Vinyl Border adhesive over unprimed walls. Best way to get it off is with dynamite or plastic explosives:D .

Try using a heat gun to warm and soften it up and try to scrape off with a stiff putty knife.

If that doesn't work, sand it smooth as possible, seal over it with an oil based primer, and smooth out completely with joint compound. Then prime again Zinsser Gardz or a QUALITY latex primer, then paint.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, we tried sanding it once without any luck. Our next step if we didn't get any advice was to smooth it with the joint compound and re-sand so I guess we were on the right track. We usually use KILZ primer and this time we also bought KILZ paint (guaranteed to cover in one coat and it really does). We used it in a different bedroom with great results. Thanks again. we go back to the new house at the end of the week to do some more painting and cleaning, I appreciate your time.

hi.& I thought it was just me!! I am going mad trying to remove a border! I put it up myself about 3 yrs ago..begining to think I must have used superglue3!!Ive scored, soaked, scraped for the past 3hrs & Ive only managed about a foot! I have always done my own painting but this is beating me..even the bit Ive managed to get off is a mess with wee bits of glue, scraped paint & plaster.cant do the whole room, it will look awful! Is there some 'painter's trick' that I just dont know about? Please Help!

Why not put a new border over the top of the old one? Just ensure it is a little wider.

Instead of putting a new border over the old one, leaving a nightmare for someone else to fix down the road, do as I said in the post above. You can do this to whole borders, vinyl facing and all, if none of it will come off. this way, you are creating a fresh slate to work on. Then the next time you put up a border, use a good WALLCOVERING primer, and use appropriate adhesive and this problem won't happen again.

hi...thanks for advice...but not quite sure what all that stuff is!!..It is frustrating but I think it is just going to take a lot of patience to scrape every bit of glue off. The wee bits that are left, couldnt I just sand them down & paint over them? I have to put a couple coats of base white paint on anyway as I have a dark green to cover.

I have been working almost non-stop so I just now read the recent posts. We tried every chemical thing we could think of to remove the left over glue and nothing worked. We ended up using joint compound over the glue, letting it dry overnight and then sanding it smooth. We used Kilz primer on the "new" area as well as the nail holes we filled in. After that dried another day, we painted using Kilz paint from Wal-Mart. I wish we had just done that first and not wasted so much time and money trying to remove the adhesive. We did not want to put up another border, although we did consider it as a solution: daughter just wanted solid light blue walls with a couple of green and orange 5" horizontal stripes around the room. Kinda bold and loud but she is a teen and after all, it's just paint and we can change it for $20 later. Wanted to mention that the walls were a light yellow to start with (nursery) and the blue Kilz paint covered with one coat and did not make the walls turn green (yellow+blue=green). It is a nice thick paint and I have now painted different rooms with it. Good Luck.