Screen your tenants thoroughly (income verification, past landlord check, unlawful detainer check, criminal background check, credit check).  

If some parts are unlawful or too vague the whole contract or parts of it can be deemed unenforceable in a court of law.Now since the tenant has not moved per the agreement then they appear to be in breach of it.

"Violations fall under this state law reference: Unlawful posting of advertisements G.S.14-145, which if the charge sticks, results in a Class 3 misdemeanor.

I proceeded to call in every claim possible over that next three months and punished them good.

The law treats you differently (punishes you more severely) than that of the unlicensed.  

I also tell them that is what I will be doing and make them aware that unlawful detainer filings will come up when they seek to rent elsewhere.

The punishment is up to $10k and is treated as a class 3 felony.

The bank cannot keep it and if they do, they should be punished.

Greg, great article, and makes my point of regulations, you simply can not trust people to do the right thing, you have to force them or make such behavior so punishable that they never even consider doing bad things.

Credit score is a function of available credit to usage.The algorithm punishes you for using most of your available credit lines.For example take 10,000 a your credit limit.7,500 or more used really hurts your score, 5,000 or more is neutral, and 3,300 or less helps your score.So 75% hurt,50% is okay, 33% or under helps.If CC's are high you can do a combo of paying some down and also asking for a credit limit increase which will lower your balance to usage ratio and should help your score rise some again.No legal advice.