Ficus Elastica - Pretty sure it has scale :(

I have a Ficus Elastica that has been losing leaves recently. A couple of days ago I picked up a leaf off the floor to discover tiny black spots on the underside of a leaf and some of them were crawling. There was also brownish/orange dry matter on the underside of the leaf. I've been searching the web and I am pretty sure what I have is scale, although most of what I read talks about a sticky substance being a sign of scale and that this sticky substance is what usually alerts people to a problem with the plant... I have not noticed anything like this. I immediately took the plant outdoors and sprayed it liberally with a soap and water mixture. It was left outside overnight in about 5 celcius weather. When I got home yesterday I examined the plant closer in the daylight and saw that a few of the upper leaves also had these black spots so I cut off pretty much the top half of the plant (it was almost 7 feet tall to begin with). I was not able to find any black spots on the lower leaves or remaining stems, but I used a mixture of alcohol and water with a bit of dish soap and sprayed the plant again until it was dripping. I took the plant indoors and left it in the hallway of my apartment building to segregate it from my other plants and trees.

So have I done the right thing? Is there anything that I may have overlooked that I should do? I do have lots of other plants in the same room that the rubber tree was in... spider plants, 2 other Ficus benjamina trees, snake plants, although this infected plant was not near any of the others, it was on a wall by itself.

I'm not only concerned about my rubber tree but also my other ficus trees in particular as they are quite old.

Can someone offer some advice or guidance???

Thanks in advance!!!

Any chance that you took some pics of the critters & stuff you found? I'm guessing not since you washed it off, but it's hard to say what you have without seeing them. Scale doesn't typically move much, so if the things you saw were visibly crawling then it's likely something else.

If they are very small - about the size of fine pepper, they're likely spider mites, though they could be scale crawlers.

Al

Ecrane3 - I didn't take pictures, sorry... I was pretty shocked to see them and sort of freaked out :)

Tapla - I figured they were scale crawlers, they were large enough for me to see that they were moving.

There should be evidence of adult scale then? So, do you have a plan?

Al

Well, that's my reason for the post.... I am wondering if someone has any advice or thoughts on what it is I should do now?

I would spray with an all-season horticultural oil mixture asap, making sure all plant surfaces were entirely saturated. If you use a hand spritzer, I would include pure, cold-pressed neem oil in the mix. If you decide to go this route, I'll offer additional guidance.

I have another helpful suggestion too, if you D-mail me.

Al

Neem oil has been the best thing I've used to rid my roses and clematis of scale. They are really bad down here and nothing else would kill them. I like Neem too since it's a natural spray so it would be safe to use in your house. If you buy Neem, make sure it's the pure Neem oil, not one of the diluted mixes.