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The ceiling tiles at Forest Mall told me something I never noticed before
I was at Forest Mall in Fond du Lac last weekend and looked up at the dropped ceiling in the old food court. Every single tile had a different water stain pattern like a map of where the roof gave up at different times. Did anyone else start seeing the mall's decay from the ceiling down?
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luna8911mo ago
Actually those aren't water stains from the roof. I looked into this a few years back when I noticed the same thing at the Fox River Mall in Appleton. Those patterns are from the acoustic backing separating from the tile face. They use this weird glue that degrades over time and creates that yellowish blotchy look. The real roof leaks at Forest Mall are way more obvious, they usually come through the light fixtures or the vents, not the ceiling tiles themselves.
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charlienelson1mo ago
That's fascinating, I never thought about the glue degrading like that. I've been noticing the same thing at the mall over in Oshkosh, where the tiles in the hallway near the old Sears have these identical yellowish blotches that look nothing like real water damage. The ones that actually are leaking have that dark, concentrated brown ring pattern, not the fuzzy splotches you're describing.
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Luna891 is RIGHT about the glue thing, I had the EXACT same confusion at the mall in Green Bay last year. I was SO sure those yellow patches were some kind of secret mold pattern, but a maintenance guy told me it's just the adhesive breaking down after 20 years. It helped to actually look for the REAL water damage - the dark rings around light fixtures are WAY more obvious once you know what to look for.
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