I live in San Francisco in a ground floor apt. with numerous house plants that never go outside. 15 years ago or so, I had an infestation of mealybugs. I diligently combed over every plant with alcohol and a cotton swab, and over several years finally got rid of them. I haven't brought a new plant into the house since.
About a month ago I was watering 2 Christmas cactuses on a window sill and saw with horror that they were heavily infested with mealybugs, so heavily infested that I tossed the plants. I admit I was negligent to have not seen them earlier, but Christmas cactuses are such low maintenance plants that I just wasn't paying attention. This window hasn't been opened for years probably all those 15 years.
A week or so later, 13 feet across the room, a night blooming cereus was seemingly suddenly heavily infested also. That window hasn't been opened in 3 years or more. Since then I've found a few on a dracaena adjacent to the cereus and a few on another Christmas cactus which was midway down the wall between the first infestation and the second. Assuming they somehow got through the window frame where the first 2 plants were infested, they had to have walked the 13 feet across the wall passing by a cycleman, which I know they adore, and 4 African violets which they also seemed to like in the past.
Where did these pernicious little bastards come from?
All I can think to do (who knows how many are still in transit from the original window to the second one) is spray the window frames with insecticide which I'm loathe to do.
If you have any answers to this problem, I'll be grateful.
Beth
