This may seem a really daft question.. but I have just moved somewhere with wooden blinds - at the moment they are rolled up, or rather, folded up - and I can't seem to be able to roll them down!!! There is a sort of stick on the left side of the window - I guessed it may be by twisting it that you can unravel them - however twisting in either direction seems to do nothing, apart from the top few slats moving UP (at which point I feared breaking them!) Also, on the right side, there are 2 (or 3 in one case) long pieces of string..again, logical thought was they may be useful in some way..but I can't move them at all.

Is something stuck in the top section of the blind, which holds the string, and needs untangling? Or am I being a dipstick and there is something else I should do byt haven't worked it out?

I must point out, I have seen and used blinds before..although at work and they were slightly different!

Any help would be appreciated as I can't get hold of my landlord at the moment and could not sleep in the house yesterday as I couldn't get the bloody blinds down!!!:help: Only online this morning so if anyone out there has any advice please let me know asap!!:)

The stick on the left is just for adjusting angle of slats (twist one way for up, other way for down).

Strings on the right are for raising or lowering the whole thing - to do this you first have to pull all the strings so the lock thing at the top unlocks, then pull and the whole thing should raise up, or to lower it just gently allow it to fall (keep the lock thing at the top open while you do this, allow it to close when you've finished lowering/raising).

The strings on the right can also be pulled individually to raise up the left or right ends (not that you'd want to do that very often but it can help level it up sometimes). That's why you pull all of them (2 - or 3 if there is a middle one too) to get the whole thing to raise/lower at the same rate.

So - basically to get it down, pull all the strings so the lock thing unlocks, then gently allow it to fall (while keeping the lock open). You might need to flick some of the slats back or forward as it unravels as they may have got pushed the wrong way.

Good luck!

Thank you - that's really helpful! Will give it a whirl when I get home:):thumbsup: