Why does the condition not work correctly in the model?

Question

Laravel

Such a problem. The User model has a method that should return records that have a status field <3, or <=2.
It doesn't work like this (returns 0 records, although there should be several): And if so, then it works:
return $this->projects->where('status', '<', 3);
return $this->projects->where('status', 1);

Answer 1

Do$this->projects->where('status', '<', 3)->get();