Healthy looking leaves falling of rubber plant. Help?

I've had this plant since June. Not entirely sure what kind of plant it is. My neighbor, she believes it's a rubber plant...

It seemed healthy, had some new growth start, then around the very end of November, leaves started to fall off. It origionally had four leaves on each stem, three on the small one. Now there's just one on each, and I'm worried about accidently touching one incase it falls. They never browned, or shriveled, just come home from work and find one sitting in the pot. Also, the leaves uses to be horizontal, now they stand almost straight up.

I'm not sure what to do to have a healthy plant again. I moved it to the hallway stairs (I live in a basement apartment), where it's getting less ligt, and I'm watering it even less than I used to do (compared to my other plants it doesn't seem to drink that much water to begin with..)

Any advice or help would be welcome. I'm fairly inexperienced in taking care of this guy...

It's Ficus elastica.

Most likely cause of leaf loss is a reduction in photo-exposure or photo-period (light level), or a drought response. The drought response can occur as a result of under-watering (obviously), a high level of soluble salts in the soil (from dissolved solids in fertilizer solutions or tap water), or from over-watering (does your soil remain wet for extended periods or do you water when the soil is still moist?).

Which of the above are you sure it ISN'T?

Al

I'm not sure which one it isn't (which is sad...). I thought the salt might be a problem in my tap water when I noticed dry light crush on the inside of the pot when the first leafs fell. I think I began overwatering with bottled water to try to flush it out, then I had gnats appear in the soil one day, so I immediately repotted it out of it's plastic pot into a ceramic that had better drainage holes and went back to a less watering, and put it out in the hall for less light because I read somewhere that the more vertical leaves could mean too much light...

I probably stressed the poor thing out completely, I panicked because the leaves kept falling and I was trying to everything to keep it from losing all of it's leaves and dying.

Ugh, typos, "dry light crust".

Guess my real question is what should I do to help it heal and get back to a happy plant?

Don't despair because you can't pinpoint a cause with any degree of certainty. It's actually much better to direct your energy toward making sure you understand how to maintain the cultural conditions that ensure you won't have to deal with these problems, than it is to try to fix inevitable issues as they arise because you are unsure of what the plant needs/prefers.

How to best care for houseplants, surprisingly, varies very little from plant to plant. Acquiring a general sense of what all plants need, and the traps to avoid for all plants does take a little effort, though. If you're willing to spend some time reading, I'm sure we can get you on the path to healthier plants with less angst and frustration. I'm going to suggest that you read the sticky thread at the top of this forum, and pay particular attention to anything that has anything to do with soil, watering habits, and an accumulation of salts in the soil. Within that triangle, the cause of probably >90% of the problems even experienced growers are forced to deal with are found; and because most of the cause originates below the soil where you can't see what is going on, most growers remain oblivious. Understanding how important your soil, watering habits, and the level of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil are to plant help is probably the biggest step forward you can take, perhaps other than implementing what you learn so the problems never arise.

If you have questions or wish to continue the discussion with very specific advice for this particular plant, we can do that here or at the other thread - here is probably better, so you can receive and consider additional advice if it's offered.

.... looking forward to the dialog. I'm also going to refer another grower who I think can benefit from this discussion to this thread.

Al

Thank you, I'm going to read more of that sticky. I appreciate your help, I'll update with how the plant is doing later in the next week, after I've read up..

Don't be bashful about asking questions. You can bet that any question you ask is going to help more than just you; that, because there are probably a lot of people wondering the same thing you are, or that will gain from your questions because they will learn something they never would have otherwise.

Al

Did the problems beginning in November co-inside with heating being switched on as this will make the air dry, also maybe your over watering the plant, stick your finger into the soil and if the soil feels wet then don't water, if feels dry, then give water but don't allow the plant to sit for long in a saucer with water in it, the gnats like warm damp soil to bread.
You also have pale leaves too and this indicates to me that the plant is not getting the right amount of light so maybe rectify all these points to see if there is any improvement but that wont be instant, no improvement will be on show for at least a week. good luck. WeeNel.