In an apartment built in the time between the two wars, the relationship between neighbors are close to indifference. On the ground floor lives an old alcoholic with his wife who despises him and their 16-year-old daughter. In the morning he sometimes sweeps up in a hairdressing salon or delivers merchandise to earn some money, which he immediately spends on beer, to drink in the company of a depressed young worker. On the same floor there lives an old shoemaker who enjoys only the company of his cats. Below them is a young couple in crisis. The opposite apartment is occupied by a grandmother of aristocratic origin who wants to protect her daughter and her granddaughter from bad influences. Nothing of what is said or done escapes the attention of a group of kids who use the courtyard of the house as a playground.