Fear Thy Neighbor

So there's a reality type TV series that has descriptions and re-enactments of real events about criminal disputes between neighbors called "Fear Thy Neighbor".

Season 6 episode 10 "Boom Town" is about 2 metal scrappers that are neighbors - friends at first and one neighbor "Pat" teaches the other "AJ" about how to scrap etc... accusations of theft from both parties - many arsons nearby and AJ accused of burning down houses for the scrap metal by Pat, AJ lit Pat's truck on fire and someone in the neighborhood burned down Pat's house.

It's actually pretty sad cause it really happened. What's more sad is that when the mob of people outside Pat's house were breaking windows etc... Pat's wife called the PD and PD didn't take the call seriously and said it wasn't that serious (probably because of numerous calls before by them) until AJ was shot 5 times (he lived) by Pat then they showed up.

https://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/fear...m-town/551470/

Wow... another scrapper on that show. Season 6 Episode 4. Neighbors start to hate on scrapper for storing metal for bringing down property value. Well one neighbor - also accuses the "scrap monkey" of cooking meth - even though he wasn't.

I am one that doubts the realism of reality shows, but at the same time having seen some conflicts among scrappers, this does not surprise me. Another story that is suppose to be true, but I do not know because I was not there:

A women calls the PD because a burglar was breaking into her house. The dispatcher told here it would be fifteen minutes before a unit could show up. She hangs up and calls back a few minutes later telling them not to worry about it because she shot the intruder. Within a couple of minutes the police show up and find the culprit at gun point, uninjured. The officer asks why she said she shot the intruder and she responded why did you say it would take 15 minutes. Thought we needed a little humor with our reality.

Originally Posted by Patriot76

I am one that doubts the realism of reality shows, but at the same time having seen some conflicts among scrappers

Me too and I am not fooled by the dramatic re-enactments extra drama and actors that look nothing like their real interviewed counterparts, however seems like at least the first story was true in Flint Mi about the 2 scrappers - then again, the media also has a way to shape things to get ratings sometimes...

https://www.mlive.com/news/flint/200...d_feud_bo.html

Originally Posted by hills

They don't really tell you the whole story.



It would probably be different if you knew the people involved personally.
Guess i'll just leave it at that.

My wife's boss was John Ramsey at Access Graphics in Boulder Colorado from 95-97 during the time his daughter Jonbenet Ramsey was murdered in 1996. Made national news.

Yeah it is different when you know people involved personally in a news story. NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, Fox ALL of them reported the story in the "small quiet college town of Boulder Colorado" etc... where even at the time there was more auto theft/break-ins per capita than Denver. Yes it's a nice city with very high land value, but not small and quiet by any stretch of the imagination, even in the late 90's.

The media made the whole family appear completely different than they actually were. Makes my wife upset to this day.


Back to what I was saying - yeah this wasn't really a story covered by the media - the scrappers etc... it's a show about case files from PD - kinda like "COPS" or "LIVE PD" but re-enacted - or "Forensic Files" etc... and the actual people involved in the crimes are interviewed in the show. So this isn't really a "news story" in fact I would trust it more than the actual news story in the paper etc...

I see what you're saying and quite agree. I haven't seen the series, but from what you're saying they made an honest effort to tell the truth of what happened.

These things do happen. There's something like 320 + million people here in the US. There are bound to be a few crazies that do extreme things here and there. It makes for good entertainment. There's money to be made from producing a show that keeps the viewer engaged and coming back for more. They've probably hit on something successful if the series has run for at least six seasons.

The thing is that it doesn't really represent the norm. It kinda creates a distorted picture of the world if you know what i mean ?

You gotta be careful with the media. There are other motivations besides the money making aspect. It's a powerful political tool as well. I think in one way or another .... we all try to remake the world in our own image don't we ?

The liberal left hammers on the school shootings as a means to furthering gun control legislation in congress. Their end game is to completely outlaw all firearms.

A relative small militant Islamic group from the middle east flies a few jets into the twin towers. We get all butt hurt over that and make a huge tactical blunder by invading Afghanistan and getting into a war we could never win. The administration never would have been able to do that without lots of help from the media. The whole thing about WMD's and invading Iraq ?

Anyway ... i know ... i'm getting off on a tangent.

Originally Posted by hills

I see what you're saying and quite agree. I haven't seen the series, but from what you're saying they made an honest effort to tell the truth of what happened.


The thing is that it doesn't really represent the norm. It kinda creates a distorted picture of the world if you know what i mean ?

It is very entertaining but sad at the same time. I don't think it is supposed to represent the norm - just point out cases were people went crazy over things that they shouldn't have. Ex. one episode some older man cold blooded murdered all his neighbors in their yard (including teenagers) over illegal fireworks in the middle of the night after many warnings at first polite then escalated then calls to the PD etc... The show really isn't about guns either, just neighbors who got violent out of control over at first minor disagreements.

and me being a nerd watching the TV show on vacation: "look a scrapper on the TV!! He got called a "scrap monkey" - What do you mean how does a scrap monkey afford a car like that? I gotta tell my buds on the forum" next episode me again: "ANOTHER scrapper!"


Just waiting for an episode where an IT Engineer, HVAC business owner or retired teacher to get crazy over his neighbors tree hanging over the fence or something.

Ohh man ... it's crazy the things people fight over isn't it ?

I ran my own (small ) carpentry business for sixteen years. Most of my customers were pretty chill but i had one that was a real doozie. That woman loved drama ... lived for it i would say. A borderline personality and really good at stirring the pot. With a rich sugar daddy boyfriend, there was no limit to the amount of legal trouble she could bring upon her neighbors. That neighborhood was in constant turmoil.

You know what they say " You create your own environment. "

It eventually came to a point where even she couldn't stand to live there anymore. She sold the property and bought a house situated on a 20 acre lot.I was thinking that should be more than enough space to keep her out of mischief but from what i hear tell ... she's somehow managed to pi$$ off her new neighbors.

I guess it's just what some people do. It's their nature.

It's funny / sad. You can see it coming a mile away. You already know that this story isn't going to end well. About all you can do is get out of the way, get out the popcorn, and watch the show.