The working-class family Bråten is living in a top floor of a tenement house on the outskirts of Oslo. The family includes three sons and two daughters, mother and father in one room and kitchen. Mother Hulda is the family hub while Mr.Bråten itself is a silent and withdrawn worker. Children contribute in their own way to the neighbors are right when they exclaim: Never anything but trouble! There are problems for all when the police come into the picture after the one his son is participating in a car theft. Middle of all this chaos, 16-year-old Maiken (Vigdis Røising) moves out and seek questionable friends, which brings her into conflict with his father. A tragedy brings the family together again.
Factory worker Otto Nielsen and his wife Helga live in a 2-room apartment in a sad Copenhagen suburbs district, where the S-trains still bumble by, but of course, such things can be used to. They have five children and it is often difficult to meet daily expenses. Nielsen has bought a building site outside the city, it is his dream to once again be able to exchange the narrow apartment with his own house.
Orphan girl Gunilla (nick named Kulla-Gulla) gets sent from her orphanage to work as an housemaid at sharecropper Karlbergs household. Among her duties is to take care of Karlberg, his wife and their five children.
