I had a gentleman paint the interior of my home. He did not prep properly and spray painted over electrical wall sockets. I am talking about the plugins that appliance are actually plugged into. He took off the face plates. Now I am sure there is paint al insde the sockets. DO I need to replace all the sockets or just clean them??

jazmine, April 2009

You can scrape the paint from the socket faces, but don't poke anything into the holes, naturally. Also don't use anything wet when you do this, and it could be a good idea to turn the electrics off. I can't see there being any paint inside the sockets themselves as obviously they were left in place when the place was painted. He should have covered the sockets with masking tape anyway, so why not ask him to come back and sort it?

John, April 2009