Rented house with cheap paint..how to clean the walls without taking it off?!

[GetYourOwnDamnSkip]

House is lovely white and fresh painted when moved in, however I used to clean the walls once a week in old house as toddler is a nightmare and now it seems to come over everytime I try to remove marks.. it's looking a proper state! Help me!

Old wives' trick that works as it's not abrasive is to use a piece of soft white bread in a circular motion to gentle remove marks.

Longer term you may have to bite the bullet and ask LL if you can repaint with a washable product.

‘Magic sponges’ are good for cleaning painted surfaces without damage. You can get them in most places that sell cleaning materials.
Not brand specific.

I'm exceptionally bad for doing this in our house 🙈 I went to b&q and bought a sample pot of Dulux in the same colour as each room (easy if it's all white you just need one but we painted ours all different). Anyway it comes with a roller attached so any scuff marks etc I just roll over :-) problem solved :-)

Sounds like you used to have an oil based paint in your old house and now have the much more common emulsion paint.

Oil based paints are just simply much harder wearing. They will take rubbing down with a wet cloth because once they’ve dried, water doesn’t activate them so they don’t come off on the cloth. Emulsion based paints are made active by water so will start to rub off once they’re wet.

Realistically if it’s emulsion, I’d just get a roller and repaint it. Typically touch dry in 30 minutes and will bear repainting very frequently if you wet the paint down. I know it seems mental, but (good quality) emulsion paint that has been cut with water (20% or so) will roller on very easily, and dry very quickly. Rather than wash the walls I’d just find 1 wall to paint each week on a rotation. Will take the same time as washing all the walls and give the same effect.

Orrrr- do what I do and have grubby disgusting walls cause out-cleaning a toddler is impossible! I repaint every 6-12 months on the walls she draws on.

😁 that's what I'm thinking! If I'm going to end up repainting then I'd rather wait till I move out and just do it the once so I can get my deposit back and just have dirty walls til then!

I have tried the magic sponge but the paint comes off and you can see the plaster coming through after the lightest of rubs.. grrrr why use shit paint??

why use shit paint??

Because on fresh plaster emulsion allows the walls to breathe while the plaster fully dries. Oil based paints on plaster also require a much more intensive priming in order for them to properly adhere. Whereas with emulsion any old idiot can slop it onto the walls and provided they’ve added some water it should bond with the plaster.

The downside (as you’re discovering) is that the paint is much weaker. I had all my walls done in emulsion, but I got all my woodwork done in oil, because it’s harder wearing.