Ivy horrors  Ivy tendrils on a wallDead ivy: enemy to bare brick
walls everywhere Photograph: SideLong/Flickr/Some rights
reserved  Back in October a question from a reader to hit a
nerve:  Q We stripped 30 years of ivy growth off the walls of
our house, but it has left marks and the remnants of tiny
tendrils, which no amount of wire brushing can shift. How can we
remove them before we repaint the walls?  A I get many, many
questions about this and I have avoided them until now, as
'Abandon all hope!' doesn't make for a very enlightening answer.
But the clamour has become deafening, so I will tell you what I
know.  A wire brush, paint scraper or pressure washer just won't
do it. You are wasting your time and damaging your walls. It is
all about time and patience. If you can live with the damage for
a few years, those tenacious little blighters just may have
shrivelled and rotted slightly, enough finally to succumb to the
attentions of a firmly wielded wire brush. Painting over them
now will not only look rubb