Learn Spanish (Latin America): El cliente pide cosas como si viviera aquí. - The client asks for things as if he lived here.

After the phrase como si (as if), Spanish always requires the imperfect (past) subjunctive. Even though the client's asking is happening in the present, the hypothetical situation requires this specific past tense. This actually matches English, where we also shift to the past tense to say "as if he lived here" instead of "as if he lives here".

Why is there no word for "for" after pide?

The verb pedir intrinsically means "to ask for" or "to request". You don't need to add a preposition like por or para after it to connect it to an object. Trying to literally translate the English by saying pide por cosas would sound wrong here.

Wait, isn't the verb for "to ask for" pedir? Why is it spelled pide instead of pede?

Yes, the infinitive is pedir, but it is a stem-changing verb in the present tense. The e in the stem changes to an i in all forms except nosotros and vosotros. That gives us yo pido, tú pides, and él/ella/usted pide.

Could I use viviese instead of viviera in this sentence?