How Not to Patch a Hole in the Wall

Here is a piece of a cardboard package containing a mesh drywall patch. The cardboard was mounted as a patch and covered in drywall joint compound...



...right here, on a wall in the former first floor kitchen at the rear of our house. A fire damaged the first floor in 2003, and the owners made repairs. Many of the repairs are rather shoddy, as you can see. Here, it seems that they removed the old outlet box by making a big hole in the wall. After installing a new outlet box, rather than make proper repairs to the drywall, they hastily patched the mess with this curious method. (The new wiring, by the way, was done well.)

When recently removing tiles and sub-floor in this room, I decided to finally get rid of the bad patch. I will remove more drywall and "patch" with a properly cut piece of drywall.