Durable Goods

We have these several window blinds in our house that use a string to raise and lower them. After you raise them by pulling on the string, if you let go, some little widget inside the header box grabs the string and holds the blind open. If you want to let the blind down, you need to pull on the string just enough to release this catch, and then move the string over to the side so that when you let the blind down the little grabber widget does not grab the string and you can lower the blind all the way down.

Could not get this one particular blind to go down. Finally noticed that the string had worn a groove in the plastic bezel that surrounds the hole. Pulling straight down on the string put the string in this groove, which prevented it from moving to the side, which meant the little grabber widget was not going to relenquish its' grip.

Our current work around is to pull the string to the side FIRST, before exerting the force needed to release the little grabber widget. Someday I will replace the bezel. Yeah, right.