any alternatives to stripping wallpaper?

and you think stripping the wall is bad!?

No

Strip, make good, decorate. Stripping shouldn't take long, or decorating. Put the effort into making good. First fill and sand, then blind wall with cheap white, second fill (+third fill) and then decorate.

Stripping with the right tools.

Perf it first with a tortoise-shaped spiked wheel gadget from the DIY sheds - the single wheel one, not the triple wheel.

Then steam it. Wear silicone oven gloves (cheap, Aldi)

Anaglypta (and heavy, plasticky papers in general) steam strips beautifully. The steam gets behind it, then the front peels off in big non-tearing pieces.

Have you thought of demoloshing and rebuilding the wall?

No need for an alternative. The ordinary paper will come off very easily with a steam stripper.

The anaglypta might be easier than you think too. Try a small patch with the steamer. If that is slow to come off, do another trial: Score the anaglypta with the point of a scraper, deep enough to score the paper but not the wall. Then steam that trial patch and see if it comes off more easily.

The more modern blown vinyl "anaglypta" are easier to strip. Just peel away the blown vinyl layer leaving the thin paper layer still on the wall. Then steam (or soak) and strip the paper. Job done.

A skim of car body filler.

MBQ

You can usually just peel it off by hand once you raise an edge here and there. What you're left with can then be soaked with a brush and cold water. I don't perforate or steam unless I really have to. Too much like hard work

You really have no alternative to stripping. For this crap get a scraper with a long handle on it. You can grip it with both hands and it makes life easier.

I have to agree with this post. Cold water is all that is required, and a good squirt of washing up liquid mixed in will keep the water on the surface of the paper for longer, making it quicker to soak.

Methods I have used to remove crap paper are-

- Using water + dab of washing up liquid. Score paper using a nail/nail poking slightly out a piece of wood wet wall thoroughly. Have cup of tea. Wet wall again. Have another cup of tea. Wet wall. Toilet. Wet wall. Scrape away paper. This was emulsioned anaglypta and vinyl paper. Obviously you can do other DIY work, instead of the cups of tea whilst the paper soak.

- Using wall paper stripper fluid. This works really well on absorbent paper, appears to break the paste bonding and paper just peels off in one piece.

I like to remove a 200mm swathe at the top, after which one brush swipe along the top edge delivers enough water to soak the next 200mm. Heavy duty scraper absolutely essential IMO. Turning it over every few seconds keeps the blade honed to perfection.

Why? Anaglypta's usually easy to strip. Be grateful it's not woodchip. Now that can be a bugger.

I use this for ridding my walls of acres of woodchip (which happened to be covering about six layers of paper going back to circa 1905):

Cheers!

Martin

PS I notice since I bought mine that they have rather expanded the range. All I bought were the fabric strips which you soak and which then stick to the paper and saturate it (which are now thirteen quid). I bought a paper tiger from my local DIY place which has the toothed wheels to score the paper, and I think I just used washing-up liquid to help the water soak the paper better.

Just a short note to thank everyone here for taking the trouble to advise me. I really appreciate it.