The tenant encounters the vertical blinds

The tenant mentioned a problem with the vertical blinds in the lounge. She said one set of vertical blinds wasn’t working. I dropped by to see what was up. This was the second time I had repaired the blinds for the tenant.

Some months ago I spent time straightening one of the mounting brackets. The bracket had been bent down so far that it caused the slats to drag along the floor, and many of the links at the base of the slats had become dislodged. With the slats dragging the ground the pull cord was difficult to operate. We fixed it. Straightening the mounting bracket raised the blinds. With the slats off the floor opening and closing became much easier. It wasn’t perfect, but quite reasonable. We explained that this was an aging property. The aging blinds also required a gentle touch in their operation. She couldn’t have listened.

On this second occasion the mounting bracket was bent so far down that the rail itself seemed to be twisted. I wondered how much pressure could have been applied to bend the steel bracket so much. How could this happen? I removed the bracket and took it to the workshop. With the bracket straightened and refitted I was expecting the problem to be resolved. However, when I attempted to draw the blinds they wouldn’t budge. The pull cord was seized. The cord which swivels the slats was also seized. Nothing worked. I didn’t understand what was going on so I disconnected all the slats and removed the rail entirely and took it away to check it out. I was surprised with what I found. No, I was amazed.

It was interesting to inspect the mechanism of the vertical blinds. To see how the innards of the blinds actually worked. The draw string on the blinds forms a loop arrangement. There are two tiny pullies at one end of the rail, and one pulley at the other end. The cord runs in these pullies and the weight keeps the cord taught.

The cord had been pulled with such force that the rail mounting bracket had bent, the force of which had twisted the rail into a position that caused the cord to dislodge from the pullies. The cord then jammed itself between the pullies and the slat swivel mechanism. One of the pullies had been damaged in the process, and had become chipped. The pulley at the opposite end of the rail which supports the cord had been ripped from its mount. This pulley was missing entirely. I can’t imagine how hard the cord would have had to have been pulled to cause the pulley shaft to rip from its mount. I only hope whoever did this got rope burns in the process, or when the pulley broke with the force of whoever it was that was forcing things gave them a good crack on the head as it twanged across the room.

This damage, in so far as I can tell, effectively destroyed the rail beyond repair. There was no way I could fix this. A quick solution was to remove the cord, which freed up the slat swivel mechanism. There was now no way to draw the blinds, except by hand, by pulling on the slats.

I asked the tenant about the cord weight, which was missing. This is the weight that dangles at the end of the cord to keep the cord firmly located in the pulley mechanism. Apparently it broke. The weight was a plastic assembly incorporating a single pulley for the cord and includes a lump of steel (ie. the weight that’s tucked away inside it). How can a weight break? It probably broke when it hit the floor when the pulley was ripped from its mounting. I asked where it was. Don’t know, was the response. I asked about the missing pulley in a vain hope that it might be able to be refitted. I also asked about it to draw attention to the fact that it was missing. Don’t know, again, was the response. I was pissed off at the lack of care.

We must try not to rent to a young person in the future. You learn by experience.