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.

  • UncleGrandPa@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    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?

  • TheRedSpade@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    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.

  • RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    This seemed like such an arbitrary law that I went looking for it and apparently it’s a small committee (4 persons*) rule that was poorly substantiated. The rule itself has been shot down by an appeals court in 2023, but the industry obviously had already set plans in motion to change their product line ups.

    “On September 13, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals vacated the CPSC’s rule on custom window coverings. The court agreed with WCMA that CPSC failed to provide an opportunity to comment on the underlying incident data, conducted a flawed cost-benefit analysis that ignored the enormous harm that the rule would have caused the multibillion-dollar custom window coverings industry, and selected an arbitrary effective date for the rule. The CPSC acknowledges that the industry will need at least 2 years to develop completely new products. So the six-month effective date would make it impossible for the window covering industry to create proven safe replacement products.”

    https://suncoastblinds.com/understanding-the-cpsc-rule-on-window-coverings-and-the-appeal/

    • I’m not from the USA, so to me it seems very weird that this is how decisions with far reaching consequences are taken. In the eu legislation like this gets putten through the wringer in the eu Commission, probably also voted on by the eu Parliament, and then still given years preparation time and back and forth between industry/lobby groups/government. But instead this was: 4 non elected people take a vote and those 4 see no issue with a 6 month deadline. Wth, what a rugpull this would have been for the industry.

    Edit to add: that rule that lost in appeal in 2023, was from November 2022, so maybe it does go in effect in november 2024, since it seems like that timetable was the biggest issue for the industry. Just speculating though, can’t look it up atm.

  • shottymcb@lemm.ee
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    3 days ago

    Also, if you have mini blinds made in the 70s, they’re full of lead

    • SmilingSolaris@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      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.

    • I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      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.

      • tyler@programming.dev
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        4 days ago

        You got cheap ones. And like bottom of the barrel cheap. I have ones from Home Depot and that has never happened. What has happened is that the internal strings have a lot more friction on them and they have snapped, rendering the entire thing broken. But of course I got the cheapest ones from Home Depot too.

      • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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        4 days ago

        I haven’t experienced them those but the pull down shades I’ve used in the past have thing where you can twist the rod to set the tension and make them work better. Does it have something like that you can do? Also I agree with you about just using curtains

  • MNByChoice@midwest.social
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    5 days ago

    I used to think it was “only” toddlers. Tragic stories of 12 year olds dying from the pull cords. Fucking horrible.

    • kungen@feddit.nu
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      4 days ago

      Am I misunderstanding what pull cords are, or why not have it so the two strings can separate easily? The two strings in my blinds “snap” together so that it’s easy to raise/lower the blinds, but the strings separate very easily from each other if applying force in any other kind of way (would be impossible for a child to accidently hang themselves with it for example)

      • kn33@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        It’s not just going between the cords. There’s also a problem that under the wrong circumstances, the cord can whip around the neck and become tangled on the tassel, around the neck.

        • cadekat@pawb.social
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          3 days ago

          I’m going to need to see a reenactment or video before I believe this.

      • MNByChoice@midwest.social
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        4 days ago

        The strings come off the “screwed in” part?

        I don’t think politicians came up with the new design, but embraced the new design. This has been an issue for decades and the ban is newin USA.