Put a plastic bag tight over your pot covering the surface soil,with a hole big enough for the trunck, preferable with an elastic, so the soil won't float out from the top.

Then, sink your plants in a tub or bucket so the pot is completely submerged for no less than 10 minutes. This will drown anything living in that soil, and anything that wants to breath will rise to the surface and die anyway.

You might get a suprised with what you see, and then maybe not. I can promise you any critters in that soil will suffocate. I am not sure of eggs, but I have never had a soil pest problem after this treatment when I use to use any kind of organic or peaty soil.

Those days are over now, since I use a much grittier soiless mix discovered on the container forums...

Hope this helps. You can avoid chemicals with this method. I am sure there are others, but this has worked for me..

Goodluck..:-)

Mike

Sorry, I idd still have a pest problem with just one pest which is a reason why I turned to the gritty mix..

Knats! Evrything else died though!

I had to bring my plants in about a month ago to kill/ remove molusks you could leave a small dish of beer on the soil, pick the molusks off at night because that's when they come out. they also hate spearmint if you have any around. For gnats or soil bugs the best way is to allow centipedes to do their job, they are preditory insects. They did the trick in the soil of my aroids. when ever you water all of the bugs will come out. It is nearly impossible or very difficult if bugs have a colony so you may have to pick bugs off. I still have a few bugs around so I have sown seeds of Chrysanthemum cinerariaefolium because it is the flower that Pyrethrum is derived from and dried flower heads are safe enough to handle and potent enough to deter most insects. The only insect pests I know the flower won't deter are molusks and the chrysanthemum leaf borer. It is the same flower used in Dog and cat flea/tick preventitive so if you get flowers established add them to your houseplant collection Spearmint would also be a good addition to help prevent insect and molusk attacks.