Mealybugs love houseplants as well as vegetables and shrubs. If you have them on a houseplant, take a cotton swab dipped in a mixture of water and vinegar or just plain rubbing alcohol and brush them off the leaves. You can also use a sponge soaked in soapy water to wipe off the leaves. Mealybugs are small pink insects that leave white cottony masses on leafs. When you see the white masses, use one of the afore-mentioned remedies.

If you spot mealybugs on an outdoors plant, check around for ladybugs. The ladybug is a great biological controller of the pesky mealybug. Other control methods such as spraying with an insecticidal soap or using an insecticide such as malathion is also very effective. A tell tale sign of the presence of mealybugs is sooty mold. Sooty mold is a blackish fungus that grows on the gel like excrement of the mealybug. Wipe the mold away with soapy water and them spray with a fungicide.