Replacing a broken set of blinds in my house and apparently no one sells the old standard kind where you pull the cord to raise them, I guess because kids and/or pets could tangle in the cord? Bit of an education in miniblinds today.
I didn’t even realize they were called "mini"blinds until I moved in to my current place and there was some kind of rule that mentioned them. I’d only heard them referred to as “blinds” my entire life up to that point. This implies the existence of larger blinds
which I’ve yet to see.Edit: I’ve definitely seen them. Apparently my brain is underclocked today.
Do the vertical giant blinds count as regular blinds or are those the large version? Link
Owning a set of these for my glass sliding door is probably why I’m in the habit of calling the ones in windows “miniblinds.”
I hate those so much. Bougie and useless in my experience
Are they really that bougie? Cuz you can get some cheap ass ones.
they can’t be that bougie, every apartment I’ve ever been in with a sliding door has those, and usually somewhere from 1 to 5 of the slats have broken off from normal operation
You’ll never convince me that they’re not chosen for that reason. When the apartment falls to bits because of cheap components, they can retain the deposit.
Bougie? I associate them with cheap shitty apartments.
Clackety clackety swishety clack. Every time there is a breeze.
I’d say those count. Edited my other comment
I used to think it was “only” toddlers. Tragic stories of 12 year olds dying from the pull cords. Fucking horrible.
12 year olds
How in tf‽
Climb on couch to get at cord. Fall. Cord wraps around neck.
Edit: Remember 12 year oldscan stillbe ~60 lbs and curtains tend to be screwed into the fame.
A little pull and tug with a bit of airway constriction?
So make it two chords instead of a loop. Problem solved.
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Well to be fair, they are annoying as hell to operate.
Oh, I see you havent used the style that replaced them yet. Infinitely worse.
The idea in concept is you just lift up or pull down from the bottom of the blinds and they’ll stay in place. In practice however, you pull down and they refuse to budge, risking you breaking them. And then when you lift up, they go to a certain point and then just stop retracting and will fall down halfway from where you wanted them.
I hate them. I hate them so much. Although, I will say blinds in general are just awful. Curtains are the superior window shade.
About 9 children die every year , strangled by mini blinds. 3500 children are killed by guns every year.
Why did we only fix the most unlikely one?
Probably because there isn’t a giant mini blind lobby, and people plastering stickers all over their pickup trucks yelling about their mini blind rights.
Because we need to repeal the 2nd amendment
gun violence isn’t an engineering problem. miniblind cords are.
There’s no amendment protecting mini blinds.
If miniblinds had been around in the 1700s they would’ve been enshrined in the constitution also
Car accidents are the leading cause of death in children. When are we going to ban the damn cars???
I thought it was a myth that kids got tangled up in the cord until my kid did it. Thank God I was standing near by.
That is the only kind I know of. How does the other kind work?
Edit: should have been more specific; the string ones are the ones I know of.
The ones I put up in my house have a high tension spring inside the top. When you want to raise the blinds you lift them up when you want to lower the blinds you pull them down. They’re not fantastic but they work well enough. You have to kind of coax them to go up lift them up a few times but then again mine were the cheapest Walmart had available
I also use the cheapest Walmart ones and they’re fine - much better than the “try 15 angles till you find the right one” cords. The trick is to raise them slowly and gingerly so that you’re not just bunching up the blinds.
My favorite thing about them is the snap-on installation. No more sketchy slide-in plastic cubes with a plastic cover. Just drill the metal clamp on and snap them in. Surprisingly sturdy.
I actually didn’t know the old style was “illegal.” I just thought they were so unpopular that they replaced them, even at the most basic option.
I’ve got the Ikea version of these and they work great, no coaxing at all. Way easier than that stupid pull cord, I would never go back. Put them up all over the house. One of them went slightly crooked and I never did figure out why or how to fix it though. I think I will eventually get some higher quality replacements anyway.
This is the only kind I know:
I think those are the ones being referred to. Nowadays they makes ones that look almost identical but don’t have the pullstrings. You can just raise and lower them from the bar on the bottom.
Which suck if you have windows higher than your head. Pullstring can be ten feet long and work just fine.
By some mechanism I don’t quite understand, you just grab the lower bar and either lift up or pull down.
We use honeycomb blinds here. You can get them in partially transparent or blackout. They are spring-loaded, and you really can’t use them wrong, pull them up or down as fast or as crooked as you want.
Mine have a hard “handle” with a string attached to it on a pulley. Twist the handle to adjust the angle, pull the string down on one side to open them, pull the string down on the other side to close.
You lift them from the bottom and there is a system of gears and springs (citation needed) that assist with them being raised and hold them in place.
Pull them down from the bottom and they come down (with some resistance).
Huh. The string ones can be mounted inside the window. I guess these can’t then.
They aren’t illegal to sell.
Manufacturers can’t make them any longer, existing inventory is permitted to be sold off. So they can be found on amazon, ebay, and a bunch of other places still. Just won’t see any new stock coming in, and places that have less stock (as in, not gigantic warehouses) haven’t been getting new ones in for some time. Nearly a year now I believe.
The phrase the Lowe’s associate used was “Illegal to have on store shelves.”
I’m not sure you should have a Lowe’s Associate as a legal advisor.
The relevant text:
Corded blinds are dangerous to children and pets. Roughly one child per month dies from blind cord strangulation, and more than 600 children per year are injured. That’s nearly an average of 2 preventable injuries to a child per day. Between 1990 and 2015, more than 16,000 children were injured.
New Voluntary Standards
- The Window Covering Manufacturers Association decided safer standards in January 2018.
- Manufacturers adopted the new standard on cordless blinds in December 2018.
- In 2019, all standard model window blinds were expected to be cordless.
Cordless Blinds & Law
- Corded blinds are not regulated under state or federal legislation.
- New, safer guidelines allow for cords on custom-made coverings.
- Per WCMA standards, custom cords should not be longer than 40% of the window height.
I think you should.
oh, Amazon will gladly sell you illegal goods. and no one will stop them
Selling plastic straws is not permitted in the EU anymore, so I’m buying them on Amazon. Don’t know whether these regulations apply only to physical stores or Amazon doesn’t give a damn, but you can go around such laws quite easily.
Likely they don’t care. Someone bought a bunch of cigarettes from Amazon.
Selling plastic straws is not permitted in the EU anymore
For real? Because plastic straws, and not the bajillion tons of packaging materials are the bane of our existence. Right?
Don’t know how the law is worded, but you won’t find plastic straws in physical shops or restaurants, and all juice boxes come with paper straws. I don’t have any issues buying plastic straws, both regular-size and for boxed juices, from Amazon.
Ah yes, miniblinds are the real threat… not school shootings
If we can only solve one problem at a time, then climate change is the only problem that matters.
If we skip that one the rest solve themselves
Ah yes, let’s get the consumer product safety commission on the problem of school shootings. Hell, since they are so able to ban the way blinds chords are setup, why aren’t they ending climate change? The genocide of palastinians? I for one demand the consumer product safety commission do it’s fucking job and reform the American policing system.
When my cat was a baby she got tangled by the neck in a blinds cord, thankfully I was right there, but it scared the shit out of me. I rent, and still (and everywhere else I’ve lived) have corded blinds, but the cords are now rolled up and tied to the top so they’re out of the way. This kind of regulation is a good thing.
Many cats die every year from them actually, just like children. I am super vigilant about hiding mine out of the way so ours can’t see them to play with because I’m terrified of it happening. I really just need to replace them, but they’re the nice heavy wooden white ones and throwing them out seems like such a waste.
Witness the horror replacing it
Natural selection is dead.
Also, if you have mini blinds made in the 70s, they’re full of lead
It is how you protected yourself from nuclear blasts since it was the cold war and all.
Fuckin-a roit buddy! Built back when people knew how to party!
I remember my dad bought some for his house and they didn’t have the pullstrings. I remember thinking that was so neat because the pullstring ones were always a pain in the ass to raise/lower.
They just installed some in our new office. Guess it’s time to somehow choke myself on them and get a phat check.
Okay but if you get stuck, at least try to get in one good asphyx-e-wank on your way out.
i guess that explains why i haven’t see them in years
External Venetian blinds are the best, but I think they aren’t so popular in the US from what I heard?
I’m not sure what that is. Outside of the window?
Yes. It keeps the heat that is generated on the surface of the blinds outside your window, so the room doesn’t heat up so much.
Wouldn’t they get really dirty? I don’t think I’ve ever seen this in the US.
Yes, it does become part of cleaning the window to also wipe the slats. They are usually made of Aluminium as far as I know.
I posted a picture in a nearby branch of the comment tree.
In the US nearly every window that opens has a screen in it to keep insects out. That’s why venetian blinds have gone out of favor in the past 70 years.
I may be missing the point. How do the external venetian blinds clash with insect screens?
My father put screens in various windows in his house and still has the external venetian blinds nonetheless.
I may be missing the point. How do the external venetian blinds clash with insect screens?
I’ve never had external blinds, but I’d assume the issue is being able to access them to open or close them. I suppose for a single-story house you could go outside every time?
Ah no, no way!
You have an articulated rod on the inside which goes through a small hole to the blind cage outside, which you turn to move the blinds up and down, and the first bit of movement in either direction affects the tilt of the blinds. The rod can be straightened when you’re not turning it and it has a plastic holder on the frame so it doesn’t dangle around.
I’m not sure if I’m describing it well, here is a picture of the rod:
And a picture of the blinds:
Nowadays more and more people put in a little electric motor with a remote control instead.
