By hiring an attorney, you would only be making your situation worse by prolonging the process and having to pay at attorney. 

This ensures that they can't later claim that they were not paid and lien your house, causing title problems that may prolong or prevent the sale of your property.  

Few examples from the top of my head:Faucets -- I've seen people try to skimp on replacing a whole faucet by replacing a washer, which usually doesn't work, prolongs the problem and just creates more costs until they do replace the whole unit.Tile floors -- People try to do it without using a backer board, which eventually causes the tiles to pop. 

Or can we prolong the agreement so they are sitting on the house unless they pay us the deposit?

You're already in a losing situation if they're not paying rent - now is a good time to speak to an attorney to make sure you don't dig the hole deeper by prolonging or mishandling the eviction process.My cut off for managing properties is about 20 minutes north of Edison, but If you want to give me a ring I'll share whatever I know with you, and point you in the right direction on anything I can't help out with.

But they did, and the Ch. 13 prolonged the inevitable.

The reason I mention this is, in stock market during prolonged bull runs (like the current one), I will stay away from buying stocks, sit on cash and wait for drops in market.

If you don't have a plan in place for how you're going to cover this in the event of prolonged vacancy or some disaster, you're setting yourself up for financial ruin.Your liability loan has a lower rates than your property loan.

@David Cozzi it's not necessarily a bad thing unless the "MTM" folks don't leave when you want them to and it turns into a prolonged eviction (depends on your market).

The only thing the soft rate increase does is prolong your losses.