Child safety and blind cords
Looped and hanging cords are a strangulation risk to small children. It is a solved problem, and worth ten minutes of your time.
If you have young children and any corded blinds or curtains in the house, do the five-point check below today. It takes ten minutes.
The law
Since 1 January 2015 it has been mandatory in Australia for corded internal window coverings to be supplied and installed to a consumer product safety standard. Loose cords must be secured, and installers are required to comply at the point of installation.
The standard exists because the risk is real and specific: a loose or looped cord at a height a small child can reach is a strangulation hazard, and it happens quickly and silently.
We are a member of the Window Shading Association of Australia, which publishes guidance for the industry on exactly this.
The five-point check
1. Walk every room
Look for blinds or curtains with long cords. Check whether any of them form a loop.
2. Secure loose cords
Cords should be tensioned or cleated out of reach, not left hanging. Tie-down devices are inexpensive and available from any hardware store.
3. Move the furniture
A cot, bed, chair or bookshelf beside a window turns an out-of-reach cord into a reachable one. This is the step people skip.
4. Check the nursery first
Never place a cot within arm’s reach of a window covering cord, in any room where a child sleeps.
5. Re-check after you rearrange
Rooms get reorganised. A safe layout in January is not automatically safe in June.
The permanent fix
Cords can be managed, but the risk only disappears when the cord does.
Plantation shutters have no cords at all. The louvres are operated by hand, and our shutters use a concealed Ultraclear mechanism rather than an external control rod — so there is nothing hanging, nothing looped, and nothing to secure.
Where a room needs a blind rather than a shutter, motorisation removes the cord for the same reason. On a nursery or a child’s bedroom it is worth the cost on safety grounds alone.
Free in-home measure and quote
Brisbane and the Gold Coast. No obligation, and we do the measuring.