international relations

So I found myself sitting in a real estate office this afternoon. M. is moving. She found the new apartment via craigslist; some french guy was breaking his lease. The apartment was deemed ok, went to the management office to do the new lease. She is paying the nominal breaking-the-lease fee for the french guy because apartment finding is treacherous here and this is not a so terrible deal. Anyway, it becomes soon evident that french guy is really nervous about getting out of his lease. He calls fifteen minutes before the new lease signing was to occur to announce that he was already at the management office. (Why his presence was necessary at a lease signing did not make sense to me.) But he is nervous in a way that makes me worry that he will wet his pants.
Controversy breaks out and this becomes an hour long meeting instead of six minutes. Why? Move-in date issues. French guy wants to move out July 4th (it seems he is unaware of the holiday nature of this date.) That seems fine, so we are talking to the management guys about when my girlfriend can move in. I say to management guys: "you're going to have to clean the apartment a little before she moves in, right?" And they agree. So it is kind of agreed that she can't move in the same day he moves out because of the practical impossiblity. But french guy is very insistent that he shouldn't pay after moving out (remember, he is breaking his lease) and doesn't want to pay the $30whatever dollars for the time spent cleaning/painting before my girlfriend's new lease starts.
So french guy gets mad at my presence somewhat during this process. He started muttering about a "tacit agreement" and then accuses me of being "ironical." He also said something about "i think you might have some intelligence". I just kept looking at the management guy who is also not understanding this french guy's deal. French guy starts talking about painting the walls himself and I'm trying to point out that this will cost more than just letting the management people do it and wouldn't we all really feel better if the move in/out things such as changing the toilet seat and checking the CO and smoke detectors was done by someone other than the former tenant?
Ultimately, it seems like despite the abuse my morality-reputation has taken from the french guy ("you are not being kind", "this might be how things are done here, you say, but I had thought we had a tacit understanding") things are moving ahead.
Can't wait to carry heavy things up six floors!