A contractor taps a wall before it comes down, listening for what it's carrying. Most people don't get that chance with the thing they're removing from a life. Some walls were never load-bearing, and their absence reads as relief once the dust clears. Others were holding more than anyone accounted for, and the ceiling adjusts to a deficit it wasn't built to carry. The difference rarely announces itself before the sledgehammer, only after, in what the house does without it.