I am betting you would have to prime the wall first to get the glue to stick. I haven't tried wallpapering before, but I know to get the paint to stick to the vinyl, I had to prime first (with Kilz). Are you going to paper right over the seams, too?

I have experimented with various techniques and two I have found seem to work best when dealing with the vinyl coated walls.

For either method you need to remove the strips and putty the seams and sand them smooth.

Method 1

Using a medium to coarse sand paper on a sander go over the walls. the idea is to score the vinyl. After you finish take a damp cloth (not wet) and wipe the dust off the walls. Then paint with Kilz (or other heavy duty white primer) Then paper as you would any wall.

Method 2

This is less intensive but more expensive. Even though the paper is likley prepasted I use a wall paper paste. Not just any paste but that which is for marine or wet area use. It is about twice as expensive as regular paste but well worth it and I use elmers glue all as a seam sealer; it will dry clear. I do not wet the paper unless the paste is very thick (I have come across two types, one is the consistancy of school paste and though it looked fine I hated working with it and ruined the first couple sheets cause I had wet them)

Anyway, hope this helps some.

D