It’s the season for all things ghostly. So if you have a house that’s haunted, who do you call?
How about a person who claims they see dead people?
“It’s almost hip now to have a pet ghost these days,” says medium and psychic Denise Guzzardo. “People have fun until the ghost starts breaking things and making the dog bark at 4 a.m. That’s when they call me.”
Guzzardo knows this may sound bizarre to most, but since the age of 3 she says she’s been able to contact dead people. “I could hear them,” she explains. “My parents just chalked it up to being imaginary friends.” It wasn’t until her dad died suddenly in a car accident when she was 17 that things kicked into high gear. “I would come home at night and I’d see my Dad standing in the bathroom window,” she says. “He always wanted to make sure I got home safely.”
These days, Guzzardo has been a go-to psychic for police departments and even for a Travel Channel show on local haunts that followed her walking through Excalibur nightclub. “My favorite haunted place in Chicago is Excalibur,” she says. “I’ve never been around such a large group of trapped souls who were so happy than what I experienced in the Dome Room at Excalibur. They may have died, but the party keeps on going.”
Guzzardo also gets asked to make house calls — especially around Halloween. “Sometimes people get nervous when I come because they’re not sure they want to get rid of the ghost,” she explains. “If they have loved ones who have died, they don’t want loving spirits to go away.”
But Guzzardo says spirits that are “in the light” would never try to scare you.
“A ‘ghost’ is a spirit that hasn’t crossed over to the other side,” she says. “If your loved one is in the light, you won’t feel them as a disturbance. But you might smell their perfume or see them down the hall. Maybe they give you a pat on the back and sit on your bed.”
And not every ghost is cooperative, she says.
“I was called to a house where the boy who used to live there had hung himself in the basement,” she says. “He had knocked a professionally hung painting onto the floor, so the owner called me and wanted to make a house party out of the whole ‘ghost clearing.'”
As Guzzardo got to work on the haunted house, the spirit put on a show. “I was standing in the kitchen and a camera bag flew off the counter and hit me in the butt in front of everybody,” she says. “One lady actually looked to see if I’d rigged a wire onto the bag, she was so surprised. This is not a spectator sport. People are going to get freaked out.”
Guzzardo says the best way to get rid of ghosts is to ignore them. “When you give a ghost attention, you give it power,” she says.
Here are Guzzardo’s other tips for handling a haunted house.
Burn sage in every room. “This goes back to Native American cultures,” she says. “You can even get sage sticks at some grocery stores, and the smell of sage clears the space.”
Tell those ghosts to get lost, and then ignore them. “Stand in the place where they are active and say ‘You are not welcome here.’ Then don’t bring attention to them. This means no seances or Ouija board parties. This only feeds the unhappy spirits and makes them more active.”
Sprinkle salt on the entrance of your home. “This keeps them out.”
Burn a white candle. “There is positive energy in white candles. Votives are good to have on hand so you can light them in every room.”
Get white roses. “White roses literally suck activity out of the house. When they dry up, throw them out immediately, and rinse salt down the drain to clear out the energy they absorbed.”
And Guzzardo says you should only attempt these activities between moon cycles. “Take this on the day after the full moon until the next new moon. This is a 14-day window,” she explains. “Otherwise it will be much too much work.”
Did she leave anything out? Let us know!
