My Shades

I purchased blackout blinds from MyShades for a condo bedroom in November 2023. We have a responsible tenant in the condo. I provided a clear picture of the window and correct measurements. I trusted that based on the picture of the window and measurements provided to them they would select the appropriate blinds. In July 2024, the entire blinds came crashing down onto the floor (picture attached).

I called the company and spoke to Laura who was initially pleasant and said they would try to send someone in to look at it but they were busy but could maybe squeeze us in the following week. I also spoke to Jay who was also pleasant and said it was likely the tenant who pulled too hard on the blinds.

We had a very experienced building contractor come in for a separate job and the tenant took the opportunity to ask him about the blinds. He is an neutral party with no reason to give a biased opinion. His opinion was that the blinds were not correctly installed, meaning that for the weight of the blinds, a separate frame should've been installed. For example, the blinds were installed directly into the drywall on one side with only 3 screws and there should've been additional screws placed in the corners.

I phoned Laura to give an update with this new information and as soon as I said the phrase '...the blinds were not correctly installed...', she immediately lashed out at me with a raised voice, using phrases like '...been in the business for 40 years..' and that she wasn't going to let someone ruin their reputation or something like that. I was really taken aback because my intent was not to blame but to point out what we were told and then to work together to find a solution. It was really a disrespectful, inappropriate, and unprofessional response to my phone call.

The tenant also called about a week later to give her firsthand account of the situation with the blinds but was not able to have a proper conversation as Laura yelled at her using the phrases '...been in the business 40 years...' and made accusations and false assumptions towards the tenant. Laura refused to listen to anything she tried to say and the tenant was really shaken by the way she was treated.

After these encounters I wrote an e-mail to Jay and said I would only be communicating with him moving forward. Jay is calmer and easier to talk to, but he still continued to insist that the blinds were correctly installed and the tenant must've pulled too hard. I questioned the choice of blinds that they installed, which based on their 40 years of experience, I would've thought they'd recommend a blind with the lever on the left hand side, considering the picture I showed them of the window clearly showed a wall on the right hand side of the window.

In the meantime, we did have the building contractor reinstall the shades properly for us. As you can imagine, it's not pleasant to try to sleep without any blinds.

They did eventually come in to take a look themselves and continued insinuating that the tenant didn't know how to use blinds properly and that was why the blinds came crashing down.

I thought about whether or not to write this review and decided to because it's not okay to try to bully or intimidate clients who try to speak up or question things. And it's okay for a business to admit if there was an oversight or mistake on their part, just be willing to work with the client in a respectful way. Everything I have written here, I have communicated directly with the business.

I do see that the business has many 5 star Google reviews so I'm sure writing this would not hurt the business. I did receive an e-mail from the business soon after the blinds were initially installed, asking for a positive review, which I didn't do at the time, and now I'm glad I didn't.