If you are one of the thousands of people who have a eucalyptus tree in your little slice of paradise then you are likely to have an unwanted visitor soon.

For right now it's the red gum euc which is most at risk to the red gum lerp pysllid, but the bug also likes flooded gum, blue gum, red iron bark, narrow-leaved peppermint and bush yate. Chances are it will spread to other gum (eucalyptus) trees.

When the numbers of pests increases on your tree the congregation secretes a large amount of sticky honeydew which will make the sidewalks and cars parked beneath the trees a sticky mess.

The leaves will stick to your shoes, to car windshields, and anything else they touch.

Infestations will stress your trees and makes them more susceptible to other pests like the eucalyptus long-horned borer. Trees which are defoliated repeatedly can be stressed to the point of death.

Look for sticky liquid and little white bumps on your trees. If you have those signs, then you have lerp psyllids.

So what do you do? Wait and wait some more. Agriculture experts are working on raising the psyllids' natural predators to the kind of numbers needed to release them locally. No amount of pesticide will do any good, so don't make yourself and your neighbors sick by spraying indiscriminately.