Alison Stewart: This Is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart, live from the WNYC studios in Soho. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. I'm really grateful that you're here. On today's show, we'll hear from two of the stars of Sinners, Delroy Lindo and Miles Caton. We'll mark the 25th anniversary of the Daft Punk album Discovery. I want to let you know that our next Broadway on the Radio event is happening exactly one week from today. We are welcoming a star-studded new Broadway revival about a Cold War love triangle, Chess: The Musical.

The show's three stars, Aaron Tveit, Nicholas Christopher and Lea Michele will be here at the WNYC Green Space performing live. We also have the show's director, Michael Mayer, and book writer Danny Strong here as well. Go to wnyc.org/chess to get more info and how to buy your tickets. Again, that's wnyc.org/chess. Now, let's get this show started with Neighbors.

[music]

Alison Stewart: If you're listening to this right now, chances are you've had a problem with a neighbor at some point. This is New York City, after all. You have never seen neighborhood conflict quite like you do in the new HBO docu-series titled, you guessed it, Neighbors. The series follows neighborhood conflicts that often start as small and then they veer into something much closer to preposterous. Disputes over feeding stray cats, building a tall wall, exercising outside in a Speedo, and elaborate Halloween decorations all cause people to, well, to lose their darn minds. There are cameras there to capture it all.

The show's creators, Dylan Redford and Harrison Fishman, capture these conflicts with curiosity, compassion, and a sense of humor. They travel around the country from Florida to California to Florida to Texas to Florida. Hey, they even found a story right in their own backyard in Bloomfield, New Jersey. They interview true characters like a woman who believes that she's an alien, a man deep in QAnon conspiracy, a woman who strips as Sarah Palin. I could just keep going.

The show is funny. It also shows some darkness. There are threats of violence and gun owners who probably should not have weapons. There are people who seem to be struggling. The series presents a portrait of Americans who are having a hard time getting along with others and with themselves. Neighbors airs new episodes on HBO and HBO Max on Friday nights.

We've decided to do something fun. We're going to dedicate the first hour of this show today talking about neighbor disputes from the petty to the extreme with the creators and directors of Neighbors and with you, our listeners. Put on your thinking caps. What is the wildest conflict that you've ever had with a neighbor? We want to hear your wackiest neighbor stories. Our phone lines are open, 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. In studio with me now is Dylan Redford and Harrison Fishman. Welcome to All Of It.

Harrison Fishman: My God, thank you so much for having us.

Dylan Redford: Thank you so much for having us, Alison.

Alison Stewart: All right, let's start with the origin of the show. How did you come up with the idea for the show?

Harrison Fishman: My brother, Sam, had became obsessed with these neighbor dispute fight videos that we see online a lot. He had shown Dylan and I these videos, and we all just got really excited about them. I think we've always been interested in conflict videos online between people, like public freakout videos. These ones were exciting to us because there was a relationship built into them that was behind them. We got very excited about them, and we started making fake neighbor dispute videos with-- We got people from Craigslist who are non-actors to pretend to be neighbors, and we gave them cell phones and pretended to film each other.

We put them online to try to convince people that they were real. I think obviously no one believed us that they were real. We were like, "It'd be amazing to be in the middle of one of these in real time."

Alison Stewart: Dylan, how did you go about casting for a show like this? Because these are real people. I want to say that again, they are real people-

Harrison Fishman: Yes, very real.

Alison Stewart: -involved in this show. How did you go about casting?

Dylan Redford: Casting is the core of the show, and I think there were a couple key factors when casting the show. We wanted it to-- The stories needed to be ongoing, so they had to still be happening. We had to get both sides because that was essential to the show's concept. Then we wanted them to be all across the country. We had a team of casting producers and subject producers, led by Harleigh Shaw, my sister Lena Redford, and they all work together to basically cull through tremendous amounts of media, ranging from local News articles to TikTok videos to court records, you name it.

If there's a place where there could be a record of some conflict, our casting team looked there. We just took a really wide net and just threw it into the American media landscape, and just tried to capture what felt like really unique American neighbor stories.

Alison Stewart: Harrison, why do you think people agreed to be part of the show?

Harrison Fishman: I think we talked about this constantly, and I think it goes back-- I think what we've realized is sometimes we say that neighbor disputes are like dreams in a way, no one really wants to hear your dream. You know what I mean?

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Harrison Fishman: No one wants to hear your dream. It's the same thing with the neighbors, when you have a neighbor dispute, all you want to talk about is your crazy neighbor dispute because it's so all-consuming in your life. I think for these people that we filmed with, we were totally excited and ready to listen to them 24 hours a day about their neighbor dispute, while other people in their lives are like, "Please stop telling me about this."

Alison Stewart: "Please stop talking about this." We're talking about conflicts with neighbors, with the creators and the directors of the HBO docu-series Neighbors, Dylan Redford and Harrison Fishman. New episodes air Friday nights on HBO and HBO Max. Listeners, what is the craziest conflict you've ever had with a neighbor? We want to hear your wild and wacky neighborhood stories. Give us a call at 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. Everyone in this series is convinced that they are right. They are so sure they are right. How did you approach trying to present both sides of the dispute?

Dylan Redford: That was like-- I think that's what got us most excited about-- Harrison talked about it. The concept of a neighbor dispute is interesting because they're all different types of conflict, and the one with your neighbor is one that's really challenging because you have to live next to them. I think, as most Americans, I think right now, the idea of selling your house or moving because of a neighbor dispute just doesn't feel possible. Housing is really expensive, and real estate is hard to find. I think we felt like these neighbor disputes represented a moment in which how do Americans deal with conflict that they can't just move away from?

I think getting both sides of the conflict, I think it was challenging. I think once we were able to be in the same room with them, which was really important, being able to sit down with the subjects and talk to them, it was clear that I think that they wanted to have their story heard. Oftentimes, what had happened is that maybe one neighbor had posted a video, or posted an article, and they wanted to get their side of the story out. I think that was a very genuine desire to want to share their story and get it out in the world. I think that that was really exciting for a lot of our subjects.

Alison Stewart: For our listeners who are calling in, if you're driving, don't call us. Pull over to the side and then call us. Please don't call us if you're driving. We do want to hear your stories, though. Our number is 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. Our phone lines are filling up, and I can't wait to get to some of these calls.

I want to suggest that you have a small suggestion in the intro, because it comes from outer space and it goes through into the planet, and then you see the planet Earth, and then it veers down on the street. The idea is like, whatever you're fighting about, it's actually small when you're thinking about the world. Why don't people realize what they're fighting about is sometimes really small? What do you think, Harrison?

Harrison Fishman: I think, to everybody that we filmed with, the things that they're fighting about aren't small to them. To us, these things are really small. To them, it's like what Dylan was saying, people's homes are-- all of their money, their entire lives, investments. I think when somebody is encroaching on that, it's huge. I think also the emotions people feel surrounding these things just get so intense and so big, especially when the relationship prior to when it goes bad was really good. If they were great friends.

It is just really complicated. It's easy to look at them and go, "Oh, how could you fight over this?" The more time that we spent with every single person we filmed with, the more we were like, "I can totally see how I could be you?"

Alison Stewart: Yes, let's take a call. This is Jenna, who's calling in from Fishkill. Hey, Jenna, thanks for taking the time to call All Of It.

Jenna: Hi. Yes, I was excited to be like, "No, I've got one for this." Back when I lived in Jersey, I lived upstairs from my landlord, and she would come in and out of my apartment. She would open windows, close windows, move things around. My boyfriend would sleep over, and she would come and scream at us, try and raise the rent because he took a shower once. The craziest part was she installed a camera to track our comings and goings, and then she left a dead rat in my bedroom.

Dylan Redford: Oh, wow.

Jenna: That was when I moved out.

Dylan Redford: Oh, wow. Oh my God.

Harrison Fishman: That's crazy. Where was the camera placed?

Jenna: The camera was placed in-- It was the thing where you walk through a front door, and then her door is to the left, and then you go up the stairs to my door. She placed it in the entryway aimed directly at my door.

Alison Stewart: That is rough. That plays it. Thank you so much for calling in, Jenna. In the series, we see how much people are filming each other. They're also uploading it to YouTube and TikTok. Why do you think the filming escalates?

Dylan Redford: We've talked a lot about that, and I think part of it-- When you get a neighbor dispute, one of the levers that you have access to to try to resolve it is calling the police. There's a lot of issues with that, and it oftentimes doesn't help. In fact, it can escalate things. Part of the reason why it escalates things is when a police officer shows up, they'll say, "Okay, well, where's your documentation? Can you show us that the thing that you're talking about is actually happening?" Then they'll also say this is ultimately a civil matter, so you have to present all this documentation in a civil court and take your neighbor to court if you want a restraining order, if you want to charge them for trespassing.

That means that, basically, the police oftentimes deputize the neighbors to becoming their own documentary filmmakers of their own dispute. They accumulate a lot of footage, and then one of the best places to put it is just put it online. Then the desire is to have validation that what is happening to them is real and that they're in the right. I think it's a cycle that I think it's all very understandable why it happens, but it does seem to escalate things.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to a little bit from Neighbors. This is from the first episode. This is a beachfront property manager and a local woman talking about filming each other as they fight over who owns a stretch of beach in Florida. This is from Neighbors.

Sara: My first altercation with Brent was when he took pictures of my daughter. You need to stop recording my daughter right now, or I'm going to make this your worst day ever. Do you hear me?

Brent: My name is Brent Fuller. I'm a property manager. I'm there to keep the public aware that this is private property.

?Male Speaker: We've got that Sara Daylight come out here, harassing the crap out of me [unintelligible 00:14:13] all the time.

Brent: She drives past 10 public beaches to come down here and harass me. At this point, I think she's in love with me.

Sara: You're a tear boy. You're a tear boy. That's all you'll ever be.

Brent: Yes, they are trespassing. Yes, I video them and take pictures of them.

?Male Speaker: You're on private property. You're still on private property. You're on private property.

Sara: Quit videotaping me.

?Male Speaker: Hey, quit touching me.

Alison Stewart: It's so interesting because they keep saying you're on private property. So many of these fights are about ownership, Harrison. Who owns what beach? Who owns the road? Who owns this tiny strip of grass? Why do you think people go to such extremes to defend ownership?

Harrison Fishman: I think it goes back to what we were saying before about what it means to own your home and own property. I think in our country and everyone-- most people work their whole lives just to own a home and own their space. In the first episode, we have Seth and Josh who were basically moved out to the middle of nowhere in order to be alone and have their homes that they've always dreamed of. The ironic and sad thing is they get into a neighbor dispute in the middle of nowhere. I think just in our country, people's space is just so important.

Alison Stewart: Yes. What did this series reveal to you about human nature, Dylan?

Dylan Redford: It's a very good question. I think you would imagine making a show all about conflict, you'd come away maybe with a more cynical point of view. I did leave the show feeling pretty optimistic, ultimately, because I think that when you get exposed to a lot of conflict, you start to see the commonalities as much as you see the differences. I did find that a lot of the things that people were having a difficult time with-- There's a lot of context. There's people struggling financially with affordability issues. They have issues with their healthcare.

There's a bunch of common things that people are struggling with that puts them in a place of precarity that then results in conflict. I ended up feeling like there is a world in which we can speak to those things and that people could find common ground and have those desires met. I think it would help resolve some of this desire for conflict and validation.

Alison Stewart: Let's take another call. This is Sandy calling in. Hi, Sandy. Thank you so much for calling All Of It. What's going on in your life?

Sandy: This was a while ago. We noticed a couple of empty ice cream containers at the bottom of our yard. We cleaned it up, didn't think of anything. Then every day it got worse. More and more garbage was dumped on our yard and we didn't know where it came from so we couldn't do anything about it. One day our next door neighbor said that he had seen our neighbor across the street dumping the garbage. My husband went over there and told him that we have a camera and that he better stop. Then it stopped. That was really disgusting and it took a long time to clean it up.

Alison Stewart: Sandy, thank you so much for joining us. Listeners, what's your craziest conflict story that has ever happened between you and a neighbor? We want to know. Our phone numbers are 212-433-9692. My guests are Dylan Redford and Harrison Fishman. Their new show, Neighbors, is appearing on HBO and HBO Max. We'll have more calls and we'll have more with Dylan and Harrison after a break. This is All Of It.

[music]

Alison Stewart: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. We're spending this hour talking about neighborhood conflicts, neighbor conflicts, with the creators of the HBO documentary series Neighbors, Dylan Redford and Harrison Fishman. New episodes air every Friday night. Let's talk to Elizabeth in Tappan. Hey, Elizabeth, thank you for calling All Of It.

Elizabeth: Hi.

Alison Stewart: What's been going on?

Elizabeth: Sure. Yes. My neighbor was having his driveway repaved, and there were lots of trucks around, and I'm right across the street. He accused me of calling the police on him. When he called the police, they said [unintelligible 00:18:56] to find out who it was. He said, "It was a woman who called." There's five single women all surrounding him in houses. Anyway, this persisted for years with him shunning me. Wouldn't bring the kids over to trick or treat, won't say hello, all this.

Then one day I'm home, and I hear all this furious, hysterical pounding on my front door. It's my other neighbor next to him screaming at me, screaming, "You called the town on us because we don't have a permit." They were doing a roof and were given a summons for not having a permit. Of course, I didn't call on them either, but it infected their neighbors. I'm the bad person, but I didn't do it. I didn't do anything wrong.

Alison Stewart: You didn't do it.

Dylan Redford: You didn't do it.

Alison Stewart: This one cracks me up. This is just a text that says, "Treadmill in Brooklyn apartment."

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Breaks it right down. Let's talk to Vivian in Cos Cob, Connecticut. Hi, Vivian, thanks for taking the time to call All Of It. What happened to you? Is she there? No, she's there. She's not there. Let's talk to David from Manhattan. Hi, David, thanks for calling All Of It.

David: Thanks for doing the show. Obviously, lots of people have a lot to say.

Alison Stewart: Sure. I want to hear what you have to say.

David: I'll keep it brief. My wife and I were lucky enough even in Manhattan to rent a bottom floor of a brownstone. It had some yard space in the back, and my father in law said, "I'm buying you 10 rose bushes, and we're going to fix up that space back there. You're young New Yorkers, you deserve a little outdoor space." Then we noticed that every rose bush that we planted was gone, just chewed down to a little nub. We saw rabbits, and we thought, "Well, those rabbits are not native to Manhattan, I don't think." Sure enough, they had been digging a hole under the neighbor's fence and coming in from their yard. The neighbors apparently had two rabbits that they did not keep in a cage.

We caught the rabbits and lifted them up gently by the scruff of their neck and dropped them over the fence, a small fence, and the rabbits were fine. We said, "Please keep the rabbits in a cage or fix the holes in the fence because they're eating everything in sight." The neighbors did nothing several times, and eventually we trapped the rabbits. I managed to catch the rabbits, not easy, and we carefully put them in the car and drove them up to a lovely clearing upstate away from the highway. I'm sure they're old and happy right now, those rabbits.

The neighbors threatened us with legal action and we were able to honestly say we have no idea where those rabbits are now. They threatened us and said those are prize-winning rabbits and you're going to have to pay $1,000 to replace them. We said, "Well, we spent about $1,200 on the rose bushes and the landscaping, so should we call it even?" We never heard back from them.

Alison Stewart: Wow. Prize-winning rabbits. Haven't heard that one before.

Harrison Fishman: I wish we had that on our show. That's a really good one.

Dylan Redford: It's a great story.

Alison Stewart: How often are animals involved in disputes?

Dylan Redford: A lot. A lot. I think it's like they-- The frustrations with the animals, I also think, it's easier to be frustrated at an animal than it is the owner because you can feel like, "Okay, maybe if I could just control the bunny or get the thing out of here, then everything would be okay. Where it's harder to control maybe the owner's actions and the owner's responsibility. I think a lot of times the conflicts get grafted onto the pets and the animals in the surrounding area, whether or not they actually have anything to do with the owner themselves or the neighbor themselves.

Alison Stewart: Can you tell us a little bit about the gentleman and the cats, Harrison?

Harrison Fishman: Yes. We have a story in our show and there's a dispute between these people, Jean and Maurice. Jean has been living in Philadelphia for about 40 years, and she's a self-proclaimed neighborhood cat lady. She'll say that herself. Basically, she feeds all the stray cats in the neighborhood, and there's about 40 of them or something that she feeds. Her neighbor Maurice moved in and basically, all the cats were defecating on his yard. This is the first house that he's ever owned. He got really upset and had basically smashed these cat houses that she had built to house these cats. Yes, this story ended up going on to Judge Judy. That was part of the resolve on that one, which was really fun.

Alison Stewart: It was interesting because it's not just the stories between the two neighbors. It goes to another level and then another level, which is what I think really makes the show interesting. The woman with the cats, we discover that she's a believer in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Harrison Fishman: That's right. Yes, indeed.

Alison Stewart: Is that fair?

Harrison Fishman: Yes, indeed.

Alison Stewart: She likes to watch holograms with 3D glasses. Let's listen to a little bit of her explaining. This is from Neighbors.

Cat's Lady: This is the shroud of Jesus Christ. It's a hologram. Jesus left us proof. We have to use 3D glasses. The image of the man comes out of the shroud. Can you see it?

?Speaker: Yes.

Cat's Lady: Luwi, come. Need to be in bed. People have a near-death or an out-of-body experience. It brings people closer to their spirituality. That's what happened to me. I became closer to Christ. I had pneumonia, and I was in the hospital for, I don't know, a week or so. I was sure that I was dead. Until I popped my eyes open in the room, there was this angelic figure, and it pulled me up out of my body. I would visit ancient civilization and they threw me back, and I hit my body again. I got up, and he said, "We're not finished." It changed me. Once you figure out that the spiritual world is real, you want to shout it from the rooftops. You want to tell everybody. That's what this is about. I really want to tell everybody.

Alison Stewart: There's another person who thinks they're an alien in a human suit. There's a man who gets deep into QAnon. Dylan, what surprised you the most about what people believe and why they believe it?

Dylan Redford: What it became towards the end is how unsurprised I was about the idiosyncratic beliefs that our subjects have. I think that a lot of it does have to do with the Internet. I think people and their algorithm on social media or their news algorithm starts feeding maybe what was a niche interest, or one video that they watched they thought was interesting, starts feeding them more ideas and more media related to that.

I think we did find that people really had a very idiosyncratic collection of beliefs. I think that is something that does feel very American right now. Oftentimes, those beliefs, maybe you would imagine are contradictory, but the way that they think about it, there's no contradiction whatsoever.

Alison Stewart: This text says, "My window air conditioner was dripping on their windowsill below. Arguments, co-op board, property manager, et cetera, everyone got involved. Months of conflict. Our super remounted my air conditioner three times in response. Ugh." [chuckles] This is Bob from Rockaway, Queens. Hi, Bob. Thanks for taking the time to call All Of It.

Bob: Hey, how are you? Good afternoon.

Alison Stewart: Good afternoon.

Bob: I've got a neighbor of mine that he comes out of his house onto his deck numerous times, like during the day, and blows a conch and then goes back in the house. You know that he's out there because you'll be doing whatever you're doing around the house, out on your deck and now you hear this [conch sound]. He does defer to daytime hours. He's not doing it in the middle of night. He's not up with the roosters, but he's like the glockenspiel. He just comes out, blows the conch, and goes back in the house.

Alison Stewart: Hey, Bob, did you ever ask him why?

Bob: Oh, there's like a myriad of reasons. First of all, he's a Coney Island Polar Bear. They do that when they go for a swim in the winter on Sunday. Then he'll give you all of these, "It's a blessing." When you hear this, there's-- The Hindus have a belief that there's numerous effects of hearing the conch. It heals disease, announces the triumph of good over evil. He just goes on and on. It's quite interesting and I read up on it. The bottom line is, it's-- I'm not going to say nonstop, but it's daily, and it's frequent.

Alison Stewart: All right, Bob, you know what I'm going to say? I'm going to tell you. You know what, get Bob's number, and we'll hand it over to these guys.

Harrison Fishman: [unintelligible 00:28:55] We'll be reaching out, Bob.

Dylan Redford: We will be in touch.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Catherine in Pines. Catherine in the Pines. Hi, Catherine, how are you doing?

Catherine: I'm good, how are you?

Alison Stewart: I'm doing okay. What's going on in your world?

Catherine: I just am relating a story that has to do with a common area. I have a feeling this is not unusual because I've heard other stories such as this one. We lived in a co-op for several decades, and we lived on a floor with four apartments. The apartment across the hall, there lived a woman who would walk around on our foyer area in her nightgown and would come into our apartments because we didn't lock our doors. She would just come in and sit down. It was unusual.

Eventually, I think we did start locking our doors, but she put her apartment on the market several times, nearly sold it, but then backed out. I saw her recently at a women's club, and she was just the same. Her outside persona and her inside persona were completely different.

Alison Stewart: Oh, interesting.

Dylan Redford: Wow.

Catherine: That is what I found.

Alison Stewart: Thank you so much for calling. I want to talk to LJ in Huntington, Long Island, because he's seen the show. He or she.

Harrison Fishman: Oh, wow.

Alison Stewart: Hey, LJ.

LJ: Hey.

Alison Stewart: Hey. Do you hear me?

LJ: Oh, yes. Can you hear me?

Alison Stewart: Yes, there you are.

LJ: Sorry. Can you hear me? Hello?

Alison Stewart: Yes, you're on the air.

Harrison Fishman: We can hear you.

LJ: Oh, sorry. Yes. I absolutely love the show. Binged, I think, the first two episodes that are on HBO right now, I was addicted. Both my wife and I absolutely loving it.

Dylan Redford: Thank you for watching.

LJ: Yes. It made us appreciate the neighbors that we had. We just recently moved a few months ago, and so sad to see our neighbors go. Then whole new appreciation for them after the wonderful experiences we had at the CNN show.

Alison Stewart: Thanks for calling in. I am talking with Dylan Redford and Harrison Fishman, the co-creators and directors of the HBO docu-series, Neighbors. Now, the show isn't necessarily political. If you watch closely, you can see a point of view here or there, but there's the one guy who says the wall around the woman's house is like bin Laden's wall. Okay, you get it. There is an episode in Florida where almost everybody in the episode is armed because Florida has a stand your ground law. How were you thinking about the politics of gun control when you were making this series?

Harrison Fishman: I think it's funny because we had made that episode-- That was the first one that we actually filmed, and it was the pilot episode that we had used to sell the show. It was our first venture into this world of neighbors and neighbor disputes. I think, like you're saying, in Florida, it's really easy to have a gun, and the restrictions are very relaxed.

I think when we were actually making the entire season, we-- in the beginning, we were like, "Oh, wow." We were asking, "Do you have a gun?" We were very interested in that. As the season went on, we realized that everybody in America has a gun. It just became something that we stopped featuring as much because we were like, "This is becoming just in the background of all these things."

Alison Stewart: Interesting. Oh, that truly in Florida especially, or are we talking about universally?

Dylan Redford: I think almost every subject we filmed with had a gun.

Alison Stewart: Wow.

Dylan Redford: Yes. I think almost. Yes. I think the danger that we felt with the guns were just that sometimes-- I think in some ways the gun is really a symbol for a lot of these people and an object that makes them feel safe, but they don't often really know how to use it, and they haven't-- Because it's been so easy to get, then when they have it, then they don't really maybe know how to use it super well, or they haven't used it in a really long time.

The only time we ever felt nervous around the guns was that it could potentially just go off or that they would drop it or not know that the safety isn't on. I think that was something that we-- it was less that we were concerned that anyone would actually shoot each other. It was more that it would go off accidentally because they just didn't really know how to use it, or they hadn't used it in a really long time.

Alison Stewart: This text says, "In my last apartment where no pets were allowed, my next-door neighbor had a squirrel."

Dylan Redford: Wow.

Harrison Fishman: Dream pet.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Solomon in Bushwick. Hi, Solomon. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Solomon: Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call.

Alison Stewart: Sure.

Solomon: Oh, yes. As a kid growing up, I had indoor outdoor cats in Florida. They just walk around the neighborhood occasionally hunting and stalking pigeons and stuff like that and squirrels. They would end up in one of our neighbor's yards, this guy John. He, anytime the cat would set foot in the yard, would run out screaming like crazy man.

I was like 10 years old, and I remember he went up to me and my sister and he got down low and looked us right in the eye, and he was like, "If that cat--" He's like, "If I ever get my hands on that cat, I'm going to put it in a potato sack, tie a brick to it, and throw it in the lake behind my house." We were just bursted into tears, crying and ran home. Then our mom went to go give him a piece of her mind. We could hear them yelling at each other from across the street.

Alison Stewart: Wow. Wow. Which actually brings me to the question of some of these people seem like some of them may have some mental illness in this series. That's my opinion. I don't know if I'm right or not, but I do get a sense that some people have trouble with reality. Did you find that when you were shooting? Did you take that into account?

Dylan Redford: Yes, I think for us, we're not mental health professionals, and we don't really have the tools to diagnose or determine if someone's mentally ill or not. We had our own criteria, mostly around agency, if someone felt that they were taking agency over their actions and decisions, because we wanted to feature people that maybe were just, like, had a very different view of the world. Were very idiosyncratic, and maybe were acting in ways that maybe someone would think is mentally ill, but actually it's not.

We didn't want to close off our show to people that just think about the world differently. I think, for us, we had our own internal way of vetting. Is this someone just maybe very mentally ill and isn't in control of their actions, or not? That was also something that Harleigh and the team really thought very deeply about. We talked. We would always talk about, "Is this person in control of their actions? How much agency do they have?"

Alison Stewart: Do you want to add anything to that?

Harrison Fishman: No. It's funny because I think we see a lot of comments that are similar to what you're saying, that's like, "Oh, these people are mentally ill." I think that there's no one on the show that I feel, and I think that we feel are mentally ill.

Alison Stewart: Okay.

Harrison Fishman: Yes. I think if they--

Alison Stewart: They think differently about the world.

Harrison Fishman: Exactly. Yes, they think differently about the world. I think an amazing part of the show, too, is, as much as we find the neighbor disputes interesting and what they bring to a relationship, I think just the show is an amazing excuse to learn about everybody in our country and all the different beliefs. I don't know, yes.

Alison Stewart: I'll think about that. I'll think about that during the break. My guests are Dylan Redford and Harrison Fishman. We're talking about the new HBO series Neighbors. We'll have more after a quick break. This is All Of It.

[music]

Alison Stewart: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. We're spending this hour talking about neighbor conflicts with the creators of the HBO documentary series Neighbors, Dylan Redford and Harrison Fishman. New episodes air on Friday night. Listeners, we're hearing your wild neighbor stories. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. Harrison, you're in people's homes, which can be a very vulnerable experience. The homes are often very revealing. What did you learn about these subjects from spending time in their homes without even the cameras running, just being in the homes?

Harrison Fishman: Wow, that's a really interesting question. I think it never got old to see into all these people's lives and to see the way that-- I think the coolest thing is seeing the inside of someone's home for these people that have lived there for like 40 plus years, because you really-- it says so much about someone. I think like in Kokomo, Indiana, we have Darrell and Bruce who, they have a Jacuzzi inside of their home, and they have like a green wall, and that kind of stuff is really inspiring to see just that type of self-expression. Yes.

Alison Stewart: Darrell is so interesting because there is this makeshift farm which is happening across the street. He is enraged, completely enraged. He is determined to stop the farm, and he may stretch the truth a little bit. Let's listen to a little bit from Neighbors.

Darrell: Our neighbor, the grandson, decided he wanted a farm right next door to us. There is 5 pigs, 6 pigs, 5 goats, 5 sheep, 6 to 8 chickens, 15 chicken, 10 to 15 chickens, 20 chickens, 3 turkeys, at least 5 turkeys, ducks, bunnies, rabbits. Along with the chickens, the turkeys, and the runny rabbits, the ducks, and the--

Alison Stewart: Dylan, you've got your head in your hands. What makes him such a compelling subject, Darrell?

Dylan Redford: I mean, filming with him was such a pleasure, partly because he was so open and so just excited to talk about what's been going on. He also does feel like a character out of a Christopher Guest film, or he feels larger than life. I think it almost felt like there was something cosmic, like his whole life and our whole life was leading up to this moment where we could film with him because it just was so easy, and a lot of the-- I think you touched on the vulnerability of letting the crew into your home. It's a big ask, and not everyone is totally willing to do that.

I think Darrell and Bruce were so generous with their time and also just their experience being a gay couple living in Kokomo, Indiana. They were just such a pleasure, and I think that Darrell just has a very animated way of speaking and is a storyteller, and that for us was such a pleasure.

Alison Stewart: Let's take a few more calls. Justin is calling in from Ossining. Hi, Justin, thanks for taking the time to call All Of It.

Justin: Hello, thank you for having me. Longtime listener, first-time caller. I've got a barn burner, hours worth of story. I'll fit into 15 seconds for you guys. A neighbor moved in, got a letter in the mail that he wanted to switch addresses with us, which was quite odd. We did some research, found out he's been convicted of tax fraud, and we thought it was a bad idea, so we turned it down.

Lots of emails about the house is haunted and that he wants to move out. Then, after berating us for political signs, told us that he's not going to move out in spite. Also, in response to political signs that we don't put out anymore, he said he's a proud gun owner and would put up a 20-foot billboard supporting the NRA over our property. Now he has religious quoted billboards going up his driveway and says they are neutral, politically neutral. List goes on. Been quite a journey.

Alison Stewart: That has been a journey. Justin, good luck to you. Let's talk to Christine in Hell's Kitchen. Hey, Christine, what's going on?

Christine: Hi. Last year in our co-op, one of our residents decided he didn't like the neighbor's tree. A very tall tree, like 30ft tall. He hired a company, chopped it down, and then decided the neighbors should pay for the tree removal. He took the stump to the management company's office, and wrote his phone number on it, and said, "You owe me $7,000." Then he sued the neighbor.

Alison Stewart: Wait, he took the stump of the tree?

Christine: Yes.

Harrison Fishman: He took it out of the ground?

Christine: Yes. He took the cut stump, and he took it to the management company's office of the neighboring building. He left his phone number on it and said, "You call me, you owe me $7,000."

Harrison Fishman: Wow.

Alison Stewart: That's one way to go about something. This text says, "When I was living in San Francisco in the '90s, my neighbor was convinced that I was drilling holes in the wall to spy on her. This went on for months. Eventually, she upped the ante and contacted the police, claiming she heard me murder someone in the apartment. The police, though incredulous, were forced to call me in to interview me about the "supposed incident".

Dylan Redford: Wow.

Alison Stewart: How often are the police involved in these neighbor conflicts?

Harrison Fishman: All the time. Yes. They're really involved all the time, but they're involved really on a surface level. Almost, it's just the police get involved. Obviously, if you call the police, usually, sometimes they'll come. Every time they come for a neighbor dispute, they always say that it's a civil matter and they really can't do anything about it. We've talked to so many police while doing this, and they're always like, "Our hands are tied, we can't get involved in this." I think, like what Dylan was saying before, that's why these things, I think, also spin out of control because people just have very little recourse in dealing with these.

Alison Stewart: Sometimes mediators get involved. When does a mediator get involved?

Dylan Redford: Mediators get involved when someone decides to take their neighbor to court. Oftentimes small claims or civil court. Oftentimes, the judge, to avoid wasting the court's time and the plaintiff's and the defendant's time, they will suggest or demand mediation happen first. It's oftentimes like a court-appointed mediator gets in the mix before they go into trial, or to avoid going into trial.

I will say that mediators that we've talked to have said the number one way to escalate a neighbor dispute beyond repair is taking them to court. If you can avoid that, if you can do mediation first, and that can be successful, there is hope that you could find a positive pathway forward. The second you start litigating your neighbor, it's going to be very difficult to ever repair that relationship.

Alison Stewart: I have to ask. In one twist in a story, a mediator shows up to help with a dispute between two women. Earlier in the episode, we discover he's sold a gun, he's got two jobs. Was this something you knew about?

Harrison Fishman: I think that we had, with that one, we had-- Basically, we sometimes are not allowed to film a real mediation, one that's appointed by a court. Oftentimes, we will ask the people in these disputes if they're open to basically doing a real mediation, but it's not one that's appointed by a court. Usually, they're okay with that because we pay for the mediator and all that stuff. We had brought on Stanley to do this mediation, and then we figured out that he also works at Nexus Shooting, which is a gun store. Basically, yes, Stanley is a mediator who does this all the time, but he also works at a gun store in Florida.

Alison Stewart: It's all back to Florida, man. Let's talk about Beth in West Orange. Hey, Beth, thanks for calling All Of It.

Beth: Hi, thanks for taking my call. We live in very blue West Orange, but our neighbor next door is MAGA all the way. We've always known we've been on political different sides of the spectrum. Over the summer, I had come home from a long drive in 100 degree heat from Virginia. I just wanted to leave water for the wildlife and go back in the house. She came over to my backyard, and she wanted to tell me that she just got a patent for an underwear line that she designed. She wanted me to see the samples. I said, "Well, what are you talking about?" She said, "Well, they're boy shorts." I said, "I've never worn boy shorts in my life." She wouldn't let us go.

I said, "I don't know how to get rid of her." She said to me-- I said, "Terry--" I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said her name. I'm not interested, but there's no way she's listening to WNYC.

[laughter]

Harrison Fishman: You never know. Never know.

Christine: You never know. I said, "I'm really not interested." She said, "Well, but I designed these specifically for women who carry their weight in their hips and thighs."

Harrison Fishman: Oh, my gosh.

Beth: I said, "How do I get rid of her? I can't get rid of her." She just wouldn't let it go. She wanted to give me the samples to try on. I'm saying, "This is crazy." I finally said-- I got it, just cut this off. I said, "Listen, I'm never going to buy your underwear because I do not support businesses who support our current president." She started screaming at me that I was crazy, that I was awful. She said to me, "How does it feel to be on the wrong side of history?" I said, "Gee, I wouldn't know. How does it feel?" That was the best comeback I've ever had in my entire life.

Alison Stewart: Beth, thank you for that call. That was wild. Like your show, goes a place you don't expect.

Harrison Fishman: That's right.

Alison Stewart: Before we go, I did want to talk about Bloomfield, New Jersey. It was a disagreement over Halloween decorations to houses. That's what it sounds like. At the heart of it, what do you think the disagreement was about? What do you think?

Harrison Fishman: With that one, I truly think that the disagreement is about-- it's about credit. I think it's about Nelson has been doing this Halloween house, and decorating his house for so long. I think he had taught Otis a lot. We see it all the time in our business, in entertainment. We see it just in life in general. Credit is really important to people. Yes, what else do you think, Dylan?

Dylan Redford: No, I think that's right. I think that it was a friendship that was really meaningful, and then there was some rupture in the competition. I think you're exactly right, Harrison. I think it was, he wanted to feel appreciated for the thing that he had done, and he felt disrespected. I think that that goes really, really deep, especially when it's a friend that you really trusted.

Alison Stewart: One final call, Janet in Maplewood. Janet, you got about a minute?

Janet: Okay. My four-year-old would turn the house upside down to find his Christmas gifts. I made up a big box, took them to my elderly neighbor who has a big house and asked if I could store them. He said fine. We put them in the third-floor bedroom. On Christmas Eve, I go over to retrieve the gifts, and he's like, "What are you doing here? No, you never gave me any gifts." That box was history until he found it in the spring.

Alison Stewart: Oh, that's so much to deal with. Thank you so much for calling in. We have about a minute left. Is there anything you want to say about the show that I haven't asked you that you think is important for people to know?

Dylan Redford: No. I've been so grateful for how many people have watched our show, and hope that people keep watching and we have a really exciting next two episodes. I hope people hang in there with us and finish out the season.

Harrison Fishman: Yes, the finale. Hang in for the finale, and we're excited.

Alison Stewart: The name of the show is Neighbors. New episodes air Friday nights on HBO and HBO Max. My guests for the hour have been Dylan Redford and Harrison Fishman. Thank you to both of you for staying and taking our listeners' calls. We really appreciate it.

Harrison Fishman: Thank you, Alison.

Dylan Redford: Thank you, Alison, for having us.

Alison Stewart: Thanks to all of our listeners for calling in. There's more All Of It on the way after the news.