Flipping Out on Bravo

During lunch I came upon a re-run on Bravo of Flipping Out. This show is very amusing. It's all about a real estate speculator named Jeff Lewis who flips very expensive houses in the Los Angeles area. And also personally flips out regularly.

Jeff Lewis has a large entourage and way too many pets. There is his CEA (Chief Executive Assistant) Jenni Pulos, housekeeper Zoila Chavez, business partner Ryan Brown and several others.

One of the others was Chris Elwood. He was married to CEA Jenni. Chris got fired after Jeff caught him in a lie via a nanny cam Jeff installed when he became suspicious his workers weren't doing their jobs, saying he was going to "catch a culprit." The nanny cam caught Chris using Jeff's computer, rummaging through files. And most seriously, answering the phone in a smart ass way, rather than following Jeff's precise phone answering script. Jeff had fired Chris several times, but this was the final time. After he was fired Chris decided he didn't want to be married to Jenni any longer.

Jeff Lewis has OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). The OCD explains a lot of his amusing behavior. Like going into someone's apartment, while they are gone, and then checking out the cupboards and organizing what's in them. Including throwing stuff away, to the horror of Jenni, who tries to get him to stop.

Lewis fixates on his 3 dogs and 2 cats. At one point he adopted some deer and was feeding them apples daily. He uses several psychics and had one of them perform an exorcism on one of his houses. He sees at least one therapist and uses Scream Therapy to get rid of his stress.

Jeff's maid, Zoila, is very amusing. She gets a bit feisty with her boss at times. Jeff thinks Zoila started getting uppity once she became a citizen and started going to night school, becoming way to familiar with her "rights". In one famous episode Zoila asked for her birthday off. Jeff said, "Didn't you just get Christmas off? Now you want another holiday?" And then later he said, "She wanted off all of Friday and all of Saturday. Well, what am I going to do? Who's going to do my laundry? Who's going to make me breakfast? She's so selfish."

He eventually told Zoila she could have another weekend off for her birthday because "I think your birthday is conflicting with my schedule."

For her birthday Jeff gave Zoila an oil painting of her that she took umbrage over, due to thinking it was unflattering. It was.

Jeff treats his pets better than his people. He spends thousands of dollars a year on his 3 dogs and 2 cats. One of his assistants is the constant caretaker of the pets. The pets have therapists, see pet psychics and in one famous episode his 8 year old Blue Point Peaked-Face Himalayan gets taken to a vet for acupuncture. That cat's name is Monkey. The acupuncture visit did not go well. You can see that for yourself in the video below...