Legal Question in Real Estate Law in New Jersey

I am renting the second floor in my home for extra income to help with the bills, an accidental landlord, you could say, and came to find out after the fact there are no legal 2 family homes in the town I live in. The tenants have been destroying my home, it is NOT uninhabitable unless their making it so, refusing to pay over ridiculous reasons that has nothing to do with vital facilities, they are just the type of people to act one way whe they move in then claim their are 50 issues we're ignoring but only letting us know in part through texting. Then when we try to go up to look, they refuse to let us in. No official list of repairs needed sent to us, no fixing it themselves and deducting from the rent, just not paying and riding out the free ride. Believe me, my husband realizes now how naive and ridiculous it was to rent to them, hindsight is always 20/20. They move in, then claim everything is broken while purposely raising our utility bills in an effort to keep us broke, after we have helped them more then I can say, helped them move, did their laundry for them since they were too lazy to walk downstairs and do it themselves, paid for a hotel for a short week while we repaired the hot water then cost us an extra $200 by flooding the hotel room and things like that, thus making it take longer to evict them because they are costing us a great amount of money. We are currently registering the rental so that we can legally take them to court. Im aware the law favors tenants in NJ which I find utterly unfair in our situation. Yes I know we should've researched the fact we cant legally rent out the apartment in our home but that point is moot as its already done. They have basically ben living rent free for months, never made any official requests for repairs yet are withholding rent. How can you fix a broken door or whatever thing they claim if they won't let you in and refuse to communicate and call the cops if you knock on their door? I had to file a complaint after being harassed by the tenant for cursing and yelling at me in front of my children because I actually caught him outside and kindly asked him to pick up his garbage in my yard. My question is: if it is an illegal rental, are they technically by law NOT legal residents of the town then? If so, it would greatly help me get them out because they have a child going to school and if he's not a legal tenant, then shouldn't he not be a legal resident, therefore not allowed to attend school by law until they live somewhere legally? Please give me some advice. Thank you

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