(So sorry for the long little story here! A lot of the info is in my last two paragraphs but I'd recommend reading the whole thing. I feel like I'm missing something very obvious.)

A switch went off in my brain a few weeks ago and I decided I wanted a bunch of plants. I have almost no natural light in my bedroom so I spent some time online looking for hardy low light plants and how to water them and everything but didn't even think of pests. I had gotten a couple from Lowe's, Meijer, and a few other places in town while a couple have been gifted to me. I have been doing a little weekly inspection of my plants to check for pests like many websites recommended and wasn't having any problems until I noticed a small white bug crawling in the soil of my golden pothos. I barely got to see it clearly before it quickly hid under the dirt again. It was white and I could have sworn it had little wings but that didn't make sense since it dove into the soil. I tried to follow it and spent a good amount of time looking through the soil for signs of more but couldn't.

I went online to look at pests that houseplants tend to have to see if I could identify it. The closest thing in size and color I saw was a whitefly but that can't be it. I isolated my pothos from the other plants and checked them and their dirt but didn't find anything. I kept looking for the telltale signs of most pests including eggs on the underside of leaves, evidence of honeydew or webs, and anything that could possibly be some kind of mealybug or scale. None of those were there. Nothing really seemed to fit the profile. A few days ago noticed another plant of mine had one of these bugs in the soil while I was checking if the plant needed water or not. Once again it disappeared and I got super frustrated. I tried the soap and water mix and thought that it had worked!

Yesterday a friend visiting from college brought me a bromeliad and needless to say I refused to bring it anywhere near my room just in case. It is on the other side of the house on another floor and I have been staring it down for longer amounts of time than I care to admit. Today as I was once again poking around in the soil and I got a glimpse of one of them in my brand new bromeliad! It has been nowhere near the other plants and each of my plants with one of them has been from a different place/person. The others have no signs of them since I've separated them but who knows.

Today after seeing one for a longer period time I've got a better idea of what they look like. For the most part they look a lot like soil mites or root aphids with similar shape and such but all the info, and even videos, I've found on those things say/show that they very, very small. When people tend to find those things they also come in large numbers and/or are on top of the soil. The ones I've seen are still pretty small but are clearly bigger and very easy see crawling around with the naked eye. They aren't on top of the soil until I move it around either. I have also only seen them one at a time and don't see anything when pulling the plants out of the pots and look around the roots. Is it still one of those things?

I don't know where they are coming from or why they are there, even in the bromeliad I kept far away and watched over. I can't see how they could possibly make it from one of my previous plants to the new one and all the plants aren't all coming from the same place. So far I've only seen them in the soil of plants with smooth untextured leaves but I doubt that has anything to do with it since I find them in the soil. I'm still very new to plants (and wasn't planning on getting so many so quickly) so maybe I am missing something obvious? So far the only damage I'm seeing in my plants is a few discolored leaves near the soil on my pothos but I've been told that could just be the plant continuing to adjust? I have no idea.

So sorry for such a long post but thank you so much for reading it and I'll take any information anybody has for me!