the person who lives in the basement suite talks to the wife one day and she says how they had to move because they were being harassed by a bunch of kids at the apartement where she and the sons had been living, they had done things to her car and made noises from the apartments around the one they lived in.
the wife finds an apartment and not long after that the person from the basement suite is leaving the subway station where he lives and coincidentally meets the wife of the other tenant coming in the subway cradleing a lapdog in each arm.
they talk for a few minutes and he asks about her harassers, to which she replies they dont bother her any more since she made a deal with them. a few weeks after that incident the person from the basement suite begins to notice strange women carrying lapdogs seemingly waiting for him on the subway, in office tower halls and at the entrance to cafes along the path of his daily wanderings around the city.
