Soap and water will not remove it. Our daughter did the same thing when she was younger. We tried everything.
The only thing that worked was Kilz brand primer to permanently cover the sticky residue, and once that dried, then he painted over the Kilz primer.

I am glad to have been able to help; although not a great source of information in this case.....

I want to thank everyone for all the helpful and useful information. The maintenance team tried basically everything that was mentioned except replacing the dry wall. What finally worked was sanding...primer…. retexturing the wall….more primer and finally re-paint.

Mindy, you were correct. This was paint not the liquid from a glow stick that we first thought it was. The paint is clear and activated by light so it’s invisible to the eye until the room is made dark.

Johnny thank you for all the information you provided, I didn’t even think about contacting a school who may have had this sort of problem before. Every single person who responded has had a part in this resolution.

I don't know if I mentioned before but this unit had just been moved into and wasn't noticed until they spent the first night there. Needless to say it looked like the inside of a laser tag game. With no other vacant units in which to move them into our staff has been working around furniture and lots of unpacked boxes to get this completed. We have a fantastic team who has worked hard to get this taken care of.
I sincerely hope no one has to deal with this again but if they do they have this forum in which to find help.

Sincerly, Teresa Bruno

I would try the magic stain eraser first, but since it's already been painted over I don't think it will help. There is a primer I use for really tough stains called BIN that works very well! See if your paint supplier carries it.

www.rustoleum.com/CBGProduct.asp?pid=216

Please let us know what works for you! :)

So what happened?

This is a unique situation that I have not run across. Using an alkyd primer or even a shellac primer MAY work. I would do a test with both products to insure that the primer will hide the chemical in the glow sticks.