“It Was the Best Thing That Could Have Happened to Our Family” – RealityNewsOnline’s Exclusive Interview with There Goes the Neighborhood’s Final Three Families: The Johnstons, The Schindlers, and The Upshaws

RealityNewsOnline: Hi, everyone! Thank you for talking to RealityNewsOnline today – and congratulations on being the final three families on There Goes the Neighborhood.

David Schindler: You are welcome.

RNO: First off, congratulations Johnston family on winning the game.

Theresa Johnston: Thank you!

RNO: What do you plan on doing with the money?

Cameron Johnston: Theresa’s [the Johnston’s niece] is going to get her cut. We have some debts to take care of and Carleigh’s college fun to look at. We haven’t really talked a whole lot about that yet.

David Schindler: I’ve been trying to convince Cam that he owes it to the neighborhood to put a large flat screen TV in the “indoor stadium.” I think he owes that to everybody. (laughs)

RNO: Upshaw family, what did you think your chances were, going into the game, of bringing home the money?

Rick Upshaw: From the start? We didn’t know! We were just playing to win.

Therese Upshaw: One of the things I want to say is that, when we first went into the game, we all knew we were playing for $250,000. But I don’t think any of us knew what were going to be the challenges or what [the game] would consist of. I think we were all a little surprised by how fast we got into it.

David Schindler: We also didn’t know what the rules were going to be – would it be a vote off show or would it be based purely on competition? We weren’t sure of the elimination process at all.

RNO: Upshaws, once you found out that the game was going to involve families eliminating one another, did you plan a strategy?

Rick Upshaw: Yes, we did. The strategy was to get someone outside of the core. We knew the core pretty well. If you got one family outside of the core in your back pocket, then we could use that trump card at any point in time. But it didn’t work out for us.

Chris Upshaw: The strategy was basically to get together as a group and take out the strongest families. We just rolled with taking out the people who we knew were our biggest challenge threats. We had no idea it would be a one-on-one vote [at the end].

Rick Upshaw: We eliminated families based on who could possibly vote for us at the end.

RNO: At the end, when it was the Johnstons who were going to have to pick between the your family and the Schindlers were you secretly thinking that the Johnstons would be nuts to take you to the finals?

Therese Upshaw: Yes!

Chris Upshaw: We were talking to Cam after they won and he wouldn’t look at us. So, we knew we were out.

Therese Upshaw: And there is no ill will. He would have been stupid not to take us out.

Cameron Johnston: I absolutely agree with them. It would have been stupid not to do it. That didn’t make it any less easy. I love these people tremendously.

Rick Upshaw: But I don’t know what his strategy was! What’d you take us out for? So you could win the championship? (laughing)

Chris Upshaw: I came to the conclusion that anybody who went up against the Johnstons [in the final vote]… They were going to lose.

David Schindler: Chris, you weren’t the only one who thought that! I tried to convince Christopher Upshaw, when the Mullennixes went out, to take out the Johnstons then – because no one was going to beat them in the end. I told them that.

Rick Upshaw: And he was right!

RNO: So, how long did the final three water sliding obstacle course challenge take to complete?

Rick Upshaw: I imagine maybe 20 minutes.

Cameron Johnston: I didn’t participate, but I think it might have been a half an hour.

Theresa Johnston: It felt like forever! Actually, it went pretty quickly since we were all in the heat of the moment. But it was absolutely exhausting.

RNO: Upshaws, you called for Matt’s judgement first in that challenge. How many did you have wrong?

Rick Upshaw: Just one.

RNO: Johnston ladies, how good did it feel to win that challenge together?

Theresa Johnston: It was awesome! It was great for us because we got to use Carliegh for a challenge. We pulled through even though Cam was injured. We did it. We went up against the boys and we did it.

RNO: Rick, you voted for the Schindlers’ to win the money. Why was that?

Rick Upshaw: Because the game was, whoever won the neighborhood challenge were Kings of the Neighborhood, and the Schindlers were the Kings of the Neighborhood. They actually didn’t get the privileges of that.

David Schindler: I did get to cook for everybody. That was awfully nice. (laughs) It was a lot of work and pressure. Obviously, it was an advantage to have that extra time, but there was a lot of pressure going on at that point. Frankly, I think the writing was on the wall at that point – us going up against the Johnstons. I don’t want to say I thought all hope was lost, but I didn’t think we had a very good chance.

The barbeque did allow us to have time [with the other families], but it was pretty crazy trying to put it all together.