Gina Kruzel is a fighter, a “hippie biker chick” with tattoos up her arms. The paranormal investigator has been serving Ohio and the surrounding area for over 38 years, driving away negative spirits.
Originally from Cleveland, Kruzel got her start reading tarot cards in her mother’s metaphysical shop, Ambergram Metaphysical Boutique. Kruzel then met famous ghost whisperer Mary Ann Winkowski, who mentored her in the basics of ghostbusting and led her to develop it into a full-time career.
“In addition to reading cards, I clear houses of earthbound spirits,” Kruzel said, explaining that earthbound spirits are ghosts. “I also take negativity off of people, places and things. If you have weird problems, then I can help with that as well.”
Kruzel said her expertise ranges from aliens to nature spirits. The process begins when clients reach out over the phone. If the client calls from a haunted house, Kruzel can immediately tell what’s going on.
“Energy does not matter to distance,” Kruzel said, adding that, for haunted houses, the client must be in the haunted house when they call. “You get a vibe on the situation when you’re talking to a person in a (haunted) house. If they’re calling me from the grocery store I can only talk about what’s in the grocery store, which would be crazy.”
Kruzel asks clients a number of questions at the start of her process, gathering as much information as possible about the strange experiences clients have with the haunted houses she clears.
“99% of the time, if you’re living in a haunted house, it doesn’t matter if you’re spiritual or not because stuff happens,” Kruzel said, highlighting that weird noises and things disappearing can make even the most skeptical believe in the paranormal. “Very rarely do people not know they’re in (a haunted house).”
Haunted houses can happen when people die but do not “go into the light.” Kruzel explained that the “light” closes a few days after the last memorial service, trapping spirits on earth. Kruzel’s goal is to go back into the home, reopen the light, and either free the ghost from earth or push it out of the house.
Ashley Eastman, an Athens resident who specializes in wellness, has had to reach out to Kruzel a number of times about ghosts in her home.
“For (the first ghost), she came over to my house and she cleared the space with sage, which makes ghosts go away,” Eastman explained. “Once it dissipates, they come back often, unless you put up these barriers at all the entrances.”
The barriers Kruzel uses are specially-blessed seeds, which she places above all doors and openings to trap spirits out or force them into the light.
Before contacting Kruzel, Eastman was unsure about the presence of a spirit in her home. She reached out to a woman who lived below her and was more than surprised by her response.
“This sounds crazy, but she said that one night she woke up and she saw blue fog coming out of her kitchen,” Eastman said, explaining what her neighbor told her. “She actually kind of thought she was losing her mind, and then she saw her cat looking at it, too. So it was really tearing me up, I was hyper about it. Then my boyfriend said, ‘Well, maybe you should call Gina.’”
Since then, Kruzel has worked with Eastman many times. In one instance, Eastman heard a noise in the night and left a worried voicemail for Kruzel. Kruzel called her back the next morning, explaining that she’d seen “something blue with stars on it” while listening to the voicemail. Eastman thought for a moment, before realizing that her comforter was blue with stars on it.
“She was like, ‘That’s where it hangs out,’” Eastman said.
To make contact with a ghost, Kruzel said you don’t need any kind of fancy equipment. Cameras easily pick up orbs and Ouija boards can almost too easily make contact with spirits. Kruzel can make contact and clear houses in a snap.
However, Kruzel insists that people with paranormal problems shouldn’t reach out to just any ghostbuster, because a lot of them don’t know what they’re doing and can even make things worse. Kruzel won’t turn people down if they really need her help.
“Bad ghost hunters can come in and stir up the place,” Kruzel said. “I’ll deal with anyone that needs help for real. I’ll do anything…from exorcisms to negative energy to all kinds of unusual things.”
For an average price of $250, Kruzel will clear and protect houses, close portals, release spirits, put protective seeds up and leave extra seeds for the clients. Sometimes, however, it just isn’t that easy.
“Sometimes people are cursed,” Kruzel said. “There’s different ways you can get negative energy on you, but once in a while, someone is cursed.”
Rosario Martin, a resident of Athens, had to reach out to Kruzel after he was cursed. Martin explained that he came back from Hawaii and instantly began losing weight and having terrible luck. Kruzel met up with him and quickly came to the conclusion that a curse had been placed on him. She pulled the energy off of him and things immediately improved.
“There’s things Gina has told me and made sense out of…that nobody else could have ever known,” Martin said. “I believe her, I believe 100% that she pulled some sort of negative energy off of me. What I know is that she helped me, without a doubt.”
Over the last 38 years, Kruzel has built up a clientele that spans the entire world. Her dedicated work has cleared spirits from hundreds of midwestern houses. She prides herself on staying connected to clients and promising her work.
“Once you know me, you know me forever,” Kruzel said. “You move to Tahiti, something’s going on, something goes bump in the night. I guarantee my work. I better be the first phone call you make.”
More information can be found at ginakruzel.com.
