An eight year old house has had self adhesive borders put on the bathroom and bedrooms. Problem: I don't know if the drywall wasn't painted correctly before application, but it is impossible to remove the borders without tearing the paint and surface of the drywall. Even the fabric softener mixture which will normally remove other wallpaper doesn't work. It seems the only solution is tearing it off.
Answer:
You may very well have to abrade the surface with a steel wire brush (carefully) and then apply wallpaper removing compound so you can scrape off the residue with a 3" putty knife. Other than that, you're back to tearingit off and then giving the surface a thin coat of drywall joint compound which will have to be sanded, primed and painted.
