Before Ryan could offer a soothing reassurance to Mrs. Gable about inspecting his plumbing stack, his personal phone vibrated sharply against his thigh with a high-priority ping. Glancing down instinctively, he saw the preview banner flash across the screen: a blunt text message from the building's property manager demanding an immediate explanation for "persistent nocturnal mechanical humming and heavy bass vibrations" reported coming from his sixth-floor unit throughout the weekend. Mrs. Gable, whose sharp eyes missed very little, instantly seized upon the illuminated screen, her expression hardening from a routine grievance into something far more accusatory.
"Well, there you have it," Mrs. Gable snapped, tapping her laminated clipboard against her floral cardigan as a tense negotiation instantly took shape right in the narrow, carpeted hallway. "Management is already getting complaints about late-night industrial noise coming from your apartment—sounds less like a dripping pipe and more like some sort of unauthorized freight motor running behind the drywall." Ryan blinked tiredly, caught between the formidable pensioner standing in his doorway and the frantic text message blinking on his phone regarding phantom machinery he had never installed. With a soft, exhausted sigh, he typed a hasty, placating reply to the property manager with one thumb while stepping back to let Mrs. Gable inspect the kitchen wall before the strata inspector arrived.