This is going to sound intensely weird...

but I had an epiphany this morning.  No one squeamish should read more...

(landcareresearch.co.nz)

Cockroaches are repulsive creatures.  Hideous.  Dirty.  I only had one place where they were a problem...

(homesweethovel.com)

Rats are worse.  Bugshit is less repulsive than ratshit, and it wasn't a swarm of angry roaches that devoured Willard.

(img2.timeinc.net)

Besides, roaches are the third string, if the rats screw it up.  The rats know they're next up; they're pacing the sidelines, waiting for the call, hoping we go down...

(Did Zelazny say that somewhere?)

I should say that I can respect them while loathing them, just as with Alex Ovechkin.  I killed a rat once.  It took two guys and ten minutes and a steady rain of blows just to kill the thing, and two hours prior to that to catch it in a three room apartment.  I respect rats on a very Darwinian level. There aren't very many ecological niches they can't  exploit.

But it hit me this morning...

rats and roaches aren't our competitors.  They're not clever parasites, using our primate-shit-where-you-live  filthiness against us.  They aren't  the enemy...

(fileshack.com)

They're the emergency food supply.

I'd try agriculture first, of course.