Looped blind cords in rented homes
Communities and Local Government received 2 coroners' reports about this hazard between 27 Jun 2019 and 9 Nov 2020.
They came from 2 different coroners in 2 coroner areas. A similar concern was raised again 1 time after the first warning.
No published response from Communities and Local Government was found for the earlier reports.
The story, report by report
Spacing grows with the time between reports.
“The deceased was strangulated by a blind cord from a blind that had been fitted prior to 2014. This blind did not have any safety features.”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗ No published response from Communities and Local Government was found for this report.
- 1 year 4 months laterClosely relatedConfidence 0.90 · higha different coroner
“residential landlords are not currently subject:|----- /--|-to'any obligation to inspect window coverings such as roller blinds =| installed at private rental properties, or to otherwise ensure that only safety cords are used on blinds in-use in properties let out to residential”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗ Communities and Local Government responded, stating 2 specific actions.Response (PDF) ↗Response (PDF) ↗
“| will ask that they continue this work with their colleagues in OPSS, in particular identifying more ways this information can be disseminated to all housing tenures.”
“The BBSA has worked with Trading Standards and RoSPA to produce some specific guidance for Landlords highlighting their responsibilities and how to make existing blinds safer”
- All reports to Communities and Local Government
Each row is one judged link between an earlier and a later report. Open a row to read both quotes, found word for word in the originals.
2019 → 2020Joey Walker1 year 4 months after Macy Fletcher · different coronerClosely relatedConfidence 0.90 · high
Closely relatedConfidence 0.90 · highBoth reports highlight the danger of unsafe blind cords lacking safety features in rented homes. They differ in focus: the earlier report stresses lack of oversight for landlords, while the later report notes no legal duty to inspect or install safe cords.
Macy Fletcher · 27 Jun 2019
“The deceased was strangulated by a blind cord from a blind that had been fitted prior to 2014. This blind did not have any safety features.”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗ Joey Walker · 9 Nov 2020
“residential landlords are not currently subject:|----- /--|-to'any obligation to inspect window coverings such as roller blinds =| installed at private rental properties, or to otherwise ensure that only safety cords are used on blinds in-use in properties let out to residential”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗
No published response from Communities and Local Government was found for this report.
Stated action
“| will ask that they continue this work with their colleagues in OPSS, in particular identifying more ways this information can be disseminated to all housing tenures.”
Stated action
“The BBSA has worked with Trading Standards and RoSPA to produce some specific guidance for Landlords highlighting their responsibilities and how to make existing blinds safer”
- Each report's concerns were extracted by Nemotron 3 Nano on Nebius Token Factory, each with a quote copied from the report.
- Concerns from reports to Communities and Local Government at least six months apart were compared by meaning (Qwen3 embeddings) and wording (TF-IDF).
- The closest pairs were judged by Nemotron 3 Super with reasoning on. Only identical or closely related, with confidence of at least 0.70, are shown.
- Every quote was checked by code as an exact substring of the original text. Names of staff and family are redacted, and the deceased are named by report title only.
| Link | Meaning | Wording | Judge | Coroner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 → 2020 | 0.72 | 0.26 | Closely related · 0.90 | different |
Judge model: nvidia/nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b. How Nemotron did the work · Full methodology.
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Other chains for Communities and Local Government
This shows that a similar concern was raised again after an earlier report. It does not say why, and it is not a finding about any organisation or person. To report an error, see the corrections route.