The spook - nicknamed Fred - first appeared 12 months ago to Brian and Liz Holloway's youngest daughter Sophie, when it walked through her bedroom wall.
Then aged three, she rushed downstairs and told Liz: 'Mummy, a man's come out of the wall and he says he does the shopping in the sky.'
Since then the spirit has manifested himself daily in a much more bizarre manner - leaving a strong stench of cigarette smoke around the house in Crook, County Durham.
Brian, 30, and Liz, 27, who are both carers, mentioned the first incident to a health visitor.
Liz has become so scared of the smelly spectre and his out-of-body odour that she refuses to go upstairs when she is alone in their home and sleeps downstairs.
Eldest daughter Donna, 11, is also becoming edgy, while Sophie, now four, just tells Fred: 'You stink!'
A medium who visited the 1940s house earlier this year told them there was the lingering spirit of a man with a long connection to the house.
But although the ghost doesn't do any harm, Brian has decided enough is enough. He has now contacted a clerical ghostbusting team through St Claire's Church, Newton Aycliffe, who are due to arrive any day.
He said: 'At first it was a novelty, nothing too major, but it's now getting intense. We just want rid of it. I want to be able to go back up into my bedroom. It's done nobody any harm, it's just getting a bit freaky.'
Smoking Ghost told to Butt Out
A family is to bring in a team of exorcists to extinguish a ghost who smokes.
[Source published thisissouthwales.co.uk - September 15 1999]
