Choosing window blinds

Blinds hang at the windows of many homes. Choosing them is partly about the room and the light. In a home with young children, it is also about the cords.

Cords, chains and young children

The Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) says blind cords and loops pose a potential danger to young children. OPSS also says new blinds with looped cords must have child safety devices fitted when they are made, or be sold with them.

RoSPA, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, says nine children died from blind cord strangulation between April 2019 and March 2022. It gives the National Child Mortality Database as its source.

RoSPA also says standards changed in 2014 and made blinds safer. Blinds fitted before then may have no safety device at all. Where a safety device cannot make an older blind safe, RoSPA says the blind should be replaced.

Making a cord safe

OPSS gives these steps for blinds already in a home:

RoSPA asks people to check the blinds in every room a child spends time in, and not only the bedroom. It says cutting a cord or chain will not remove the risk and may damage the blind.

Blinds in healthcare settings

In England, a Department of Health and Social Care alert from 2010 covers looped cords and chains on blinds in healthcare buildings. It says they can present a strangulation hazard to children and to vulnerable adults. It says risk assessments should be carried out on looped blind cords where those people are commonly present.

Made-to-measure blinds and cancelling an order

When people order goods online, by phone or from a seller who visits their home, the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 usually give them 14 days to cancel. The 14 days start the day after the goods arrive.

Regulation 28 sets out goods the right does not cover. One of them is goods "made to the consumer's specifications or are clearly personalised". A blind cut to the size of your window may come under that, so ask the seller before you order.

When a fitter puts them up

Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, goods bought from a business must be of satisfactory quality. Section 9 lists safety and durability among the things that quality includes.

Section 22 gives a 30-day short-term right to reject faulty goods. Where the contract says the seller will install them, the 30 days start once the seller has told you the installing is done.

Section 49 says a business must carry out a service, such as fitting, "with reasonable care and skill".

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