How wet must carpet be for replacement? Here's my tale of woe: I hired painters (with good track record on Angies list) to remove wallpaper and paint. Today was wallpaper removal day. They taped down heavy duty plastic around perimeter of wall to wall carpeted bedroom, then put tarp on top. Used pump sprayer/DIF mixture to remove wallpaper. They left here at 11. I just went in a little while ago (6 p.m.) to uncover floor air vents to turn on AC as it has gotten very hot. The carpet is wet along the perimeter, in some places as much as a foot in, more so in corners. Not dripping but pretty wet. The padding seems damp -- however, this is padding that has a top and bottom moisture guard kind of thing (meant to preserve padding in the event of a kid peeing through diaper or pet accident).

I don't really want to pull up all the carpet and padding since I'll have to have the entire floor redone in that event. However, I don't want mold.

For those who are wondering, yes, I called the contractor and our call got cut off (and she now isn't picking up her cell phone), and she seemed more concerned with establishing that the tape hadn't come up (it hadn't) than being concerned about the damage.

Ideas about how to preserve carpet and padding would be greatly welcome and thanks for reading and letting me vent. I live alone and there is no one to vent to here right now.