drew_hart4•1mo agoMost Upvoted

Got burned by a bad patch job on my Amarillo rental last Tuesday

I went over to fix a nail pop in a bedroom and the whole section of drywall crumbled because the previous owner had used spackle instead of joint compound on a 2-foot patch. Has anyone else run into weird shortcuts from flippers around here?

3 comments

3 Comments

kaigibson1mo ago

Spackle on a patch that big is definitely the wrong call, but I've seen plenty of flipper homes that used spackle on screw holes and small dings and it held up fine for years. The real shortcut is not mudding and taping the joint right, that's what makes the whole thing crumble. I'd rather see a quick spackle patch on a tiny spot than them slapping on a huge sheet of new drywall with no tape and calling it good.

moore.beth1mo ago

Oh man, "crumbled" is exactly the right word for what happens with that spackle mess. I bought a house in Lubbock that had a whole bathroom wall held together with caulk and prayer, fell apart the first time I tried to hang a towel rack. Flippers out here love using the cheapest quick-fix stuff they can find, drives me nuts lol.

claire_young761mo ago

Flippers out here love using the cheapest quick-fix stuff they can find" - god ain't that the truth. I had a similar disaster in my first place where the previous owner had spackled over a 2-foot crack in the hallway wall. Looked fine until winter hit and it literally fell off in one big sheet when I bumped it with a chair. @kaigibson is right though, a tiny spackle job on a screw hole is totally fine, it's when they try to use it like actual joint compound on big repairs that it all goes wrong. What finally worked for me was just cutting out the bad patch entirely and putting in a proper piece of drywall with tape and mud. Took me a weekend but it's still solid 4 years later.