HOPKINTON — Vulture lovers, this one is for you.

A single-family house with trees where turkey vultures and black vultures roost year-round is for sale. The asking price: $189,900. The current assessment: $222,800.

The previous owners blamed the huge birds for polluting their well, scaring their children, chasing their cats and causing myriad illnesses, but their presence hasn’t deterred Patrick Murray, a real-estate agent trying to sell the property.

Real-estate agent Patrick Murray, left, shows the side yard of 145 Main St., in Hopkinton — a property known for being a roosting spot for turkey vultures — to prospective buyers Greg and Maril McKenna, of Providence. The birds weren’t there for the McKennas’ visit.

The Providence Journal / Gretchen Ertl

The house is not for everybody, Murray acknowledges. But for the right buyer, Murray says, the 1,746-square-foot, four-bedroom, two-story house on a .63-acre wooded lot right on Main Street (Route 3) could “make an excellent bird-watching bed-and-breakfast establishment.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Murray asks rhetorically. “I’m trying to turn lemons into lemonade.”

The house, which the bank took back in March after a foreclosure, sits empty.

On a recent afternoon this week, as Murray prepared for a showing, the vultures were nowhere to be seen. Murray said they were off “doing the vulture thing,” but, he added, he’s certain they’d return that night, as they do every night.

To a visitor familiar with the site, the yard appears cleaner than it had been in the spring, when bird droppings partially covered the ground. Yet, a few scattered vulture feathers can still be seen through overgrown vegetation.

The fire pit, where the previous homeowners once disposed of the dead vultures, is gone. So are the Eastern white pines that once fronted Ben York’s property across the street. York said he had been thinking for a while of taking down the trees, some of which grew about 80 feet high. He is now planting new landscaping.

Murray said when the listing was first assigned to him, he had heard about the vultures, but didn’t know what to make of their presence. “It didn’t take me long to find out,” he said. A computer search of “vultures” and “Hopkinton” led him straight to the house’s address, 145 Main St.

He said he realized then that the best approach would be to lay out all the information and let the buyers come to him. He even posted a photo on the Web site of Randall Realtors, GMAC Real Estate, of the vultures perched on the property’s trees.

“Full disclosure,” Murray says. “There is no sense in trying to hide the fact” that vultures roost there.

“In fact, they mentioned the house on The O’Reilly Factor,” he said, referring to Fox TV commentator Bill O’Reilly. “If he got wind of it, it’s hard to keep it a secret.”

The house needs work, Murray says, from new windows to new doors, siding and a new septic system. More may be needed, he said. Asked about the well, which the previous homeowners said was contaminated by the vultures’ droppings, Murray said it had not been tested.

One of Murray’s clients came up with the idea to market the property as a potential B&B. Although that may require permission from the town because the property is in a residential zone, the house’s location, Murray said, lends itself to such a business.

“I think the town would be receptive,” Murray said. “You are taking a property that is on the main street and you are making it a showpiece.”

In the three months on the market, Murray said he’s had “18 showings and a couple of offers, but nothing that the bank is going to accept.”

“It’s just a matter of time. The right guy will come along.”

So far, no hospitality entrepreneurs have come knocking. Most, such as Greg and Maril McKenna, are interested in rehabbing the property as a single-family residence. The McKennas, who now live in Providence, are looking to move back to the Westerly area.

“Doesn’t need much short of a total renovation,” Greg McKenna said, after walking the property.

Still, he said, “it seems to be solid enough.”

“It’s a lot of work,” his wife added, “but I’ve got a brother who is in construction” and a nephew in carpentry.

Maril McKenna said she especially liked the house’s old look. “It reminds me of mom’s house,” she told her husband.

“It might be as old,” he replied.

Murray reassured them that the town would work with them if a new septic system was to be installed or trees cut.

But Maril McKenna said no trees would come down.

The vultures “are ugly,” she said. “I’ve seen them, but they are birds. [People] have to learn to live with nature.”

The previous homeowners — Daniel and Sue Cullen, who bought the house in 2002 for $152,500 and lost it to foreclosure in August — have one message for prospective buyers: “Buyer beware.” With the vultures, Dan Cullen said, come liabilities. While he tried every technique he could think of to get rid of the birds, he also said last winter that he feared that he would somehow be held responsible if the birds moved elsewhere and contaminated someone else’s property.

Town officials to whom the Cullens turned for help also cited their reluctance to get involved in a dispersal plan. They said they might be held liable.

Dan Cullen first approached the state Department of Environmental Management in the fall of 2002 for advice on how to get rid of the vultures. He was told something he would hear over and over again in the years ahead: vultures are protected by the federal government from destruction or even harassment.

The vultures’ population has apparently been growing and expanding into nearby properties. The birds are extending their stay. Once considered to be occupying a winter roost, the vultures now appear to be staying year-round. The Cullens say they don’t miss their first home.

Now in a rented house in North Stonington, Conn., Dan Cullen said, “We are doing wonderful.”

Craig Cullen, 12, who suffers from asthma, has not used his inhaler since they moved. He and his sister, Cassandra, 10, now play outside, a lifestyle change that is helping them lose weight, Dan Cullen said.

The whole family was recently baptized, becoming members of First Hopkinton Seventh Day Baptist Church, whose members lent them a hand through their difficult days.

“We went to the church just for spiritual guidance,” Dan Cullen said, “and they turned into a family.”

Cullen also has kind words for their business partner, who is also their landlord. “He took a chance on me,” Cullen said. “If it [weren’t] for him, we’d be across country somewhere.”

Cullen said the family is also trying to donate anonymously to several children’s charities the same amount of money they had received in donations, roughly $8,500, after a Providence Journal story on their plight in February. “For people to stand up for us was absolutely beautiful, because no one else would,” he said.

marmenta@projo.com