Sometimes the larvae of cerambycid beetles can be heard working beneath bark on green or partially seasoned wood. They frequently are found in firewood. They resemble the old house borer, but they have different habits and do not infest seasoned wood. When the adults emerge, they seek more green wood to attack. If they cannot escape from the building, they die in a few days. WHAT TO DO Consider whether the control problem is one that you can handle yourself or whether it is one that requires the services of a pest-control operator. If you have a severe infestation, or one that is behind paneled or plastered walls, or in some other hard-to-reach place, it may be that only an experienced pest-control operator with the proper equipment can do a satisfactory job. If the infestation is light and easy to reach, you may be able to handle the control job yourself. Spraying or brush-coating the wood with an insecticide may suffice. If wood has been so badly damaged that its structural strength is impaired, it should be replaced. Coordinate the repair work with the control work. =Spraying or Brushing= Beetles that make numerous small holes in the surface of wood are controlled by saturating the wood with a deodorized kerosene, such as deobase or ultrasene, which contains either 5 percent DDT, 2 percent chlordane, 0.5 percent dieldrin, or 0.5 percent lindane. With 1 gallon of any of these materials you can treat at least 100 square feet of wood surface. Use no more of the material in a single application than is needed to wet the surface. Repeat the application until the wood is saturated. Apply with a garden sprayer or a paintbrush. The treatment is also effective against infestations in furniture and other wood products. For best results in treating any kind of material, first remove the finish. This is especially desirable when you treat a large area, such as a floor, but it may not be desirable when you treat ornamental products. Where an infestation in a floor is so small that removal of the finish is undesirable, go ahead and treat the floor, but do not walk on it until it has dried. The drying takes several hours. The old house borer and other beetles that do not make entrance holes in the surface of the wood can also be controlled by surface applications of these chemicals. Larger quantities must be used, however, especially where thicker wood is concerned, such as floor joists, studs, and roof rafters. For such materials, at least 1.5 pints of the insecticide per cubic foot of wood is needed to reach the beetle larvae. This is equivalent to treating the exposed surfaces of 7 linear feet of a 2- by 10-inch floor joist, 12 feet of a 2- by 6-inch roof rafter, 18 feet of 2- by 4-inch studding, or 12 square feet of subflooring. Even with this thorough treatment, it may take from 3 weeks to 3 months before all the larvae are reached and killed.