Judy King has a manner that's almost casual for someone in her surroundings. She's relaxed and comfortable as she relates story after story.

Getting up from her chair, she stirs a large pot of just-picked beans simmering on the stove.

Trouble is, there's other stirring and simmering in King's home that would make most people uncomfortable.

"The spirits haven't really done anything mischievous," she said.

She and husband Steven King - you have to let that name sink in for a moment - say they share their circa 1792 farmhouse with at least five ghosts: three little girls, a man and a pregnant woman.

At least is the operative phrase here.

They say their German Twp. home, tucked well back on a rocky lane, has also been home to the phalanx of spirits for many years, perhaps centuries.

Before buying the home in 1987, it belonged to Judy's parents - George and Pearl Gentry - for 35 years.

They also reported plenty of experiences with spirits.

Asked to pick a story, Judy King said, "Everyone remembers this one: My mother had gone across the field toward the woods looking for a cow close to delivering a calf.

"There was a storm approaching and the sky was getting dark. The dogs had followed her.

"She noticed the sky was getting darker and she decided to return to the house before the storm hit."

That's when the dogs ran off "and my mother noticed a shadowlike figure beside her. The figure was wearing a cape and top hat and terrified my mother."

King said her mother literally ran out of one shoe, which her brother retrieved the next day.

One time, when no one was home, King's mother was working outside when she noticed something in the front windows.

"Upon looking close, she noticed books being picked up from the windowsill and being paged through and then put back down," King said.

Her mother sat down on a rock near the driveway and waited for the family to return home.

King said the strange happenings didn't stop when she and her husband moved in.

"When we first moved in, our bedroom was the room back here," she said.

"That was the original room of the house and there's an old road that used to go down in front of the house."

The outline of the road is still visible.

King said she used to hear carriage doors opening and closing.

There is also a young pregnant woman who cries all the time, yearning perhaps for a husband gone to war. King said the legend is that she grieved herself to death in an upstairs bedroom.

Just a month ago, Steve came into the house, sat down in his favorite chair and "saw somebody standing by the fireplace."

The figure was just as quickly gone.

In a room where wakes were once held, Judy said, "Out of the corner of your eye, you can see people passing by."

Records as long ago as 1894 list 20 owners of the house, showing few were willing to stay very long in the house, which is featured in Haunted Ohio IV written by Greene County resident Chris Woodyard.

But now the place is for sale.

Judy, 64, a retired medical transcriptionist at Middletown Regional Hospital, and Steve, 58, retired from the Mound in Miamisburg as a chemical engineer, want something a little easier to care for, even though they rent the 66 acres for farming.

King said anyone interested in buying the place will get an unusual disclaimer.

"We have to tell them," she said.

"They get all the spirits wih it."

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