[Al-Khwarizmi]

I only find this to be a problem when I travel abroad. Because in my home country (Spain), the vast majority of residential buildings have blinds like this:

http://www.persianas-ruiz.com/Contenidos/NotaA1.jpg

These blinds don't go behind the window frames, but in the window, fitting in grooves carved in the window itself. With that, absolutely zero light will enter through your windows at night.

I have seen that most other countries don't use this kind of blinds, and I wonder why that is. They seem like a win-win to me. If you want an absolutely dark room you get it, and if you don't, you only need to not lower them 100% and then little rays of light will get through the horizontal grooves that you see (which close if you fully lower the blind).

When I travel abroad I always have to do all kinds of involved stuff (like you describe) to get my room reasonably dark, and it's so incredibly easy if you have the right kind of blinds...

I think it may be the only thing where Spain can give the rest of the world a lesson :)

[tiziano88]

We have the same in Italy, and I still don't understand why other countries don't use the same blinds everywhere too.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

According to the Spanish Wikipedia, "with the mentality that the wealth of a country depends on its citizen's labor, the use of these blinds was discouraged in some countries, to the extreme that Benjamin Franklin even proposed that church bells should ring at dawn so that the people are ready to work from dawn to dusk".

It cites no sources, but some Googling uncovers this letter by Franklin:

http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/franklin3.html

which in fact contains the remark about church bells, and also proposes that "a tax be laid of a louis per window, on every window that is provided with shutters to keep out the light of the sun".

However, that letter seems like very scanty evidence to say that using that kind of blinds was actually "discouraged" anywhere...