Aquí No Hay Quien Viva

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Aquí No Hay Quien Viva (Here no one can live) is a Spanish Dramedy taking place in an apartment building, Desengaño 21, in Madrid. The series focuses on the entire community: three apartment floors, with two apartments each. Plus, the doorkeeper's lodge in the ground floor and the business locale (Most of the time a video rental club). As the cast's lives crash with each other, Hilarity Ensues.

The show won numerous awards in it's home country and was the third most watched show of it's time. The populatiry warranted 8 different versions across the globe, with a US version greenlighted for 2011. (Though the original is considered the best.)

The show ran for five seasons, totalling at 90 episodes. (Though the third season was so long, the DVD release split it in two and some consider the show to have six seasons)

Characters include:

  • Emilio and Mariano in the doorkeeper's lodge: Emilio is the overworked doorkeeper, often taken for granted and abused by the community. He has an on-again-off-again relationship with Belén. His father, Mariano, recurring in season 1, moved in after his wife kicked him out, much to Emilio's dismay.
  • Marisa, Vicenta and Concha in Apartment 1-A: Radio-Patio, this nosy trio is not only in charge of finding out everyone's dirty laundy, but also putting it out for the entire building to see. Vicenta, aloof and has been a virgin forever; Marisa, her older sister and polar opposite: raunchy, alcoholic and a smoker; and Concha, and old grouch and obnoxiously loud woman make up this elderly but deadly trio.
  • Mauri and Fernando in apartment 1-B: A gay couple, at first they try to hide their relationship. (Claiming to be friends, much to Mauri's discomfort) After Fernando comes out, he gets a job offer in London and is briefly absent. Meanwhile, Mauri has a short relationship with Lucía's brother, Diego, and has a baby through artificial insemination with lesbian friend Bea. When Fernando comes back they get back together and eventually marry.
  • The Cuesta Family in apartment 2-A: Juan Cuesta is the president of the community, a position he takes too seriously. His wife, Paloma, is loud and outspoken. After she falls into a coma, Juan begins a relationship with a nurse, Isabel, who was living in 2-B, and she moves in. His two children, Jose Miguel, average but gifted kid with a quick wit, and Natalia, sarcastic and deceivingly sweet, who has the looks to bribe guys by seducing them.
  • Various owners in apartment 2-B: The apartment is inhabited by Armando, Concha's son who lives there with her and his children in season 1, then the Ruiz family in season 2, when Isabel moved in with her husband, a sleazy man that went from riches to rags. It is then rented by Nieves, Juan's sister, after she moved out of Juan's apartment, and she begins a relationship with Andrés to try to make Isabel mad and jealous. It is also rented by Carmen and Bea, Diego and Roberto, and the Heredia family afterwards.
  • Lucía in apartment 3-A: Lucía moves in with then boyfriend Roberto. Even though they got engaged, they decide to postpone it and the relationship becomes on-and-off, further complicated by another suitor (and ex-boyfriend), Carlos, who turns the relationship into a Love Triangle. Both boyfriends lived with her at one time or another. She also had a relationship with a man called Yago, an ecologist, whom she cheats on with Roberto, ending the relationship. She eventually leaves, and never chooses between any of the men in her life. Her father moves in during the last season while they reform his household.
  • Belén, Alicia and other housemates in apartment 3-B: Concha is the owner of the apartment, but she rents it to Alicia and Belén, who often struggle to pay the rent. Belén often works crappy jobs and Alicia is an aspiring actress. After Alicia leaves for New York, Belén has several housemates, including Bea, Mauri's lesbian friend; Carmen, university professor and Emilio's ex; Lola, police officer; Ana, flight attendant and Bea's girlfriend; and Maria Jesús, Belén's mother, who moves in after her husband kicked her out.
  • The Attic: During the first season it was sort of a deposit, then it was rented by Roberto and later by Pablo and his father, Andrés. After he moved out, Paco lived there with Pablo.
  • Video club Paco, struggling filmmaker works here. It is later bought by Carlos, and he retools it so it's also a karaoke by night and Natalia starts working here too. When Lucía's father moved into her apartment he bought the video club.
Tropes used in Aquí No Hay Quien Viva include: