Q: Just to clarify, if my rent was due on the 1st. The labdlord served me a 72 hr notice on the 3rd,

A: If the notice served on the 3rd included a demand for rent first due on the 1st, it likely IS a defective notice. If it was for rent first due the previous month or even before that, then it may be valid. Further if it was served on the 3rd, depending upon how it was served, filing on the 6th may be separate grounds for invalidating the case. Regardless, you MUST go to court if you wish to defend the matter and assuming you do not reach an agreement at First Appearance, you need to file and Answer and go to trial in order to protect yourself and avoid being evicted. If somehow the landlord gets a Judgment of Restitution (eviction order) from the court, if you cannot get it set aside (difficult to do and only available for a very limited number of reasons), it will be on your rental record, period. There is no expunging civil cases or Judgments. Landlords are supposed to only consider prior evictions for 5 years but good luck in enforcing that. Besides, if things are as you represent, this is the sort of case that many attorneys would consider taking on contingency where you would not owe them anything for their time and fees (after the initial evaluation and confirmation of the strength of our case) but rather they would collect their fees from your landlord upon winning in court. If, somehow, you did not win, you still would not owe your attorney anything for their fees. So by all means, retain an attorney to maximize your chances of doing it right and winning your case. Besides, you and your landlord will be doing your parts to help keep your attorney out of the poor-house. :~)