Vasiliy Kirsanov is a former bank clerk, and now a failed illusionist. In order to make a show "almost like Copperfield," he persuades his wife Svetlana to sell their comfortable apartment and buy a small one-room apartment. But the show failed, and Svetlana and two children are extremely cramped in the one-room apartment, and the wife demands an urgent solution to the housing problem. While looking for an apartment, Kirsanov accidentally stumbles upon an extremely profitable advertisement and, with the money from the sale of his apartment, buys an excellent three-room apartment, but... the apartment turns out to be a surprise - a real ghost lives in the apartment.