I wasn't too concerned at first. The noise had been growing steadily louder but it still wasn't loud enough to annoy the parakeets or even the mice. Or maybe it was only my wife who was bothered by it. She had exceptional hearing in the low range, and the creatures' murmur was so low I couldn't even hear it at all. Frankie said we needed to do something, but she didn't have any definite ideas. We asked the intelligent assistant for help but it said it wasn't able to do that, yet. Even after all these years. You would have thought they would have solved all the problems by now. Even the aroma didn't bother me though Frankie said they smelled real bad. We tried to describe the creatures' characteristics but the intelligent assistant came up with nothing. We ruled out aardvarks and voles, but were pretty sure there was a "v" in there somewhere. It felt like a thing with a "v" in it. On Mondays it was especially irritating, trailing off in that department by the end of the week. It may have been entirely in Frankie's head. I was never quite sure, but she was. One of the last things she said was "it might be a thing with a 'w' instead".