Sounds like you have some insects.

Many of them will make the plant sticky.

Wash it as best you can with soapy water, then visit your local nursery for a good all purpose pesticide.

Could be white flies, they are very tiny and leave when you go near the plant. Usually they are only a problem in nurseries.

Possibly you've found your answer by now. Not sure what it could be as I've grown Polyscias for 40 years and never had insect or disease damage. You might want to read George Elbert's article at this site...or send an email as this nursery specializes in these plants. Good luck. josh

Here is a link that might be useful: Rhapis Gardens

White spots could be spider mites but they make the leaves look really odd in a particularly noticeable way.

If it IS white fly, the fliers are mostly harmless, although you want to kill the fliers to because they lay eggs, which you don't want. Yellow fly tape is supposed to work. The nymphs are the problem. They're also very hard to see unless you know to be looking for them. Neem oil apparently works the best for those. I wouldn't know, because when one of my plants had a white fly outbreak, it was in November, nobody was selling neem or neem-based products, and I had to use some sort of vegetable oil to kind of scrub the nymphs off with. It actually seemed to work, for some reason.

It could be scale. Just a few could cause a lot of stickiness but wouldn't necessarily do a lot of damage.

My plant has sticky leaves. And then they die. I remove them, but it is going up the plant. It use to be so full of leaves. I cut the very top part of the plant and stuck it in water. I can feel some of the leaves are sticky. I’m afraid I am going to lose this plant. HELP.