If you’ve ever used Command Strips, you’re probably aware that removing them from your walls can be the trickiest part.
That’s why a woman’s TikTok tutorial has gone viral. In it, she shows how to take Command Strips off the walls without damaging the wall paint or leaving behind sticky residue.
“This is how you’re supposed to pull off command strips because apparently a lot of people don’t know how to,” TikToker Savannah Turner (@savannahlatturner) starts.
The tutorial
She holds the Velcro strip, which is stuck to the wall, with her left hand. Turner uses her right hand to grab the little tab at the bottom of it. She then slowly pulls it downward.
“And you don’t even have to hold very hard or even pull very hard,” she says. “You pull and pull and pull slowly. And the reason why you hold is so that you don’t accidentally rip it off the wall and damage the paint. And if you’ll see here, the adhesive is being removed both from the wall and from the Velcro strip itself.”
Turner continues to hold the Velcro strip while slowly pulling on the tab. “So you keep holding, you keep pulling,” she says. “Light pressure, light pressure, and light pulling. You keep going.”
The sticky part of the strip stretches and eventually parts ways with both the wall and Velcro. “Tada,” she says, showing the undamaged wall.
Then, she repeats the process with a second Command Strip.
Viewers can’t get it right
Turner’s helpful tutorial has 495,000 views.
Viewers shared that they have had a hard time getting this process right. “It ruins my paint every time,” one said. “Mine always breaks when pulling it down,” another shared.
Some were shocked that this wasn’t common knowledge. “I thought everyone knew this i’m shocked people don’t know how to do it it was literally in the commercial when they first came out,” one of the top comments reads.
“Y’all never saw the commercials? They show this in the television commercials,” another viewer questioned.
@savannahlatturner pull straight down! now you know how to properly remove command strips!!! #tutorial #moving #renterfriendly ♬ original sound – savannah
What do you do if your Command Strip breaks?
Command does offer a similar tutorial on its YouTube account.
It also offers one for what to do in the event the sticky part breaks mid-pull.
According to Command, you should use floss to get whatever the Command strip is holding in place, like a hook, off the wall. Then, grab the end of whatever is left of the sticky strip and continue pulling downward.
Internet culture is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here. You’ll get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.
