the lady paid the first month rent in Jan. and my house is in Danville, Illinois she now say my house is damaged but refuse to move out

What about the rent for the past 9 months?

If my tenants do not pay by the 5th of the month, l start the eviction process. PERIOD.

Obviously, your house is not damaged that much because it is certainly OK enough for her to continue to live there. She is taking advantage of you and it is only going to get worse so you'd best get down to your court house and file for eviction. They have clerks there who will tell you what you need to do.

go to your local court and file eviction proceedings

Start the eviction process

You're getting taken advantage of & u need to involve the courts. Damage is not an excuse to not pay rent, she still has to pay. If there was actual damage, ur tenant could take u to court to make u do the repairs & during the court hearings she would have to pay the rent to the courts & they would hold it in escrow until the repairs were completed.

And l must say.. The landlords who r gungho about eviction process if they do not get payment by the fifth r the worst type of landlords. In today is economy to give a person 2-5 days to pay with penalties would be the most respectable thing to do rather than paying off lawyers & courts to save yourself from eviction because u did not turn over ur rent check on day 5. Those landlords have absolutely no heart. l went through it. l lost my job & l was waiting for my last paycheck to come in. It did not arrive until the 8th & l had contacted my landlord at the time to explain what happened & l was more than willing to pay the extra fees. He decided to file the eviction & told me in order to stop it l had to pay an additional $500 in court & attorney fees to stop it. This was my first time not being able to pay on ttime.

l packed up my stuff overnight & left abandoning the apartment before the eviction papers were even handed over to me. l returned a week later to find them posted on the door & l took them home to my new apartment. When we went to court, by some miracle the judge threw out the case but the landlord kept my $400 security deposit.

In this case, get her out as fast as u can.