painting my bedroom -- found drywall tape peeling?
 

I am getting a bedroom ready to paint, and right at one of the corners, it looks like there is drywall tape bubbling up and ready to come off the wall.

i have no drywall experience, but this is quite weird, isn't it? did the previous owner forget to mud over the tape?

more to the point, do I have to peel that tape off and re-do it completely, before painting? can i get away with just removing the tape and painting over whatever is there?

thanks a lot...

Re-taping it would be the best. Hard to know what caused it, probably not enough mud under the tape, or could be a moisture issue.

It depends on what you want the job to look like. The tape joint has failed. It could have had a void under it, it could be stressed from settlement, water. Hard to tell, but whatever has failed has to be cut out and replaced. If it's only one side, just cut it and spackle. If it's both sides, the easy fix is to gently cut it out, spackle, sand, prime, run a bead of caulk down the corner, finish. If you insist on replacing the corner properly, that's a whole other thread.