Roland's on the Rampage!

The cheeky little beggars!
They stroll into my back garden, help themselves to apples and then scurry away as if they owned the place!
They don't give a sod that they're our apples. OK so they're windfalls and we just haven't cleared them from the garden but that's not the point - they're OURS!
I'm not talking of local wayward kids scrumping apples, I'm talking rats!
Two of them to be precise, a large greyish one and a smaller more brown-coloured one. I'll call them Roland and Roberta. Bold as brass you can see them scurrying about in our garden minding their own business and then disappearing for a few moments into next door's garden to give morsels to - I suspect - little baby Rolands.
Having observed this for a little while we decided that SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!
So we obtained a bait box and laid it on their normal route. A week or so went by with no sign of any of the bait being taken. Then today, glancing out of the kitchen window, I noticed Roland going about his business in the garden and going into the bait box! I watched fascinated as he took some of the bait and disappeared next door for a few seconds - presumably passing food to family. Then Roberta joined in, both of them ferrying morsels into the neighbouring garden and then after a few seconds reappearing for more.
My next door neighbour called in the pest control people from the local council. He said any rats would probably be coming from the area at the back of the local shop about 100 metres away where they heap all their rubbish waiting for collection. He said there was no sign of rats in next door's garden - but what does he know? I've witnessed them coming through a gap in the fence and then disappearing back there. So that is why we had to do something for ourselves.
There is something quite cute about these little rodents doing what little rodents do and it makes me feel guilty that I have poisoned them and condemned them to a slow, lingering death in agony as the anti-coagulant in the poison gets to work and they bleed to death internally.
At the same time these little furry friends can bring disease to the neighbourhood and as such should be destroyed.
It's just a pity that their way of life and ours do not lend themselves to peaceful co-existence. I know that there are plenty of places nearby where the rats would be undisturbed. Streams run nearby - one even running through a small Wildlife Conservancy area which is probably a safe haven for them.
But wasteful man leaves all these tit bits around - discarded crisp bags, snack crumbs, other tasty morsels - which are easy pickings for Roland and Roberta and all their many, many cousins.
I mustn't get too soft or I'll end up creating a Rat Sanctuary in my garden!
Wouldn't that be cute . . . ?