On Renting Rooms

There's nothing people lie about more than their romantic and erotic past. Except, maybe, real estate. That's the conclusion toward which my husband and I have been tending, as we committed the classic error of landlords: we wanted to be friendly enough to ignore a dubious first impression and give the guy a chance. We should have been all business--at least until we got to know him. But we like to like people. We're university teachers--in the interest of squeezing a better essay out of a (lazy? distracted? indifferent? traumatized?) head, we sometimes ignore a deadline and encourage the kid to try again. Occasionally that works. After all, we're modeling what we wish for students to emulate: tolerance, perseverance and hard work. We follow that formula much of the time, but such second chances don't fly with candidates for rented rooms.
After my husband painted and renovated the room and bathroom our last (lovely) tenant had inhabited for nine years, we advertised and got a call from a distracted-sounding young man who seemed very interested. He reminded me, over the phone, of a marathon runner who'd forgotten which direction his feet were facing. But I figured he was charging around between work and potential rentals. I'm acquainted with stress, and figured his condition was temporary.
In person, he made a better impression. He told us where he worked and what he did, he convincingly assured--by whipping out his asthma inhaler--that he wouldn't be a smoker, he said he didn't cook much and worked long hours, and when we figured out he'd mainly be using the room to sleep and have a cup of coffee, and return to his large extended family over the weekend, we decided to offer him the place.
He wanted to pay in cash, right then and there.
That was when I should have asked myself whether he had a bank account. We didn't accept that offer, suggesting instead that he return to sign the lease when he could also bring proof of employment. 
In the States, I could ask for three references, including an employer, and phone them. Folks don't do that here, but I figured a letter or even an email from his employer would be a reasonable request. 
We made an appointment for our prospective renter to bring said proof and sign the lease. Instead, when he was supposed to be there, he phoned saying he was in a traffic jam. Could he come two hours later? Sure, we said. Another phone call: Could he come another day? Too much traffic. 
We settled on another day and a definite time. He wasn't there. He wasn't there half an hour after the appointed time, nor an hour later. We went to the movies. When we returned we found he'd called more than three and a half hours after our appointment and left the following message: "I had an emergency. Please call me." We didn't, instead emailing him that we'd given the apartment to someone else, figuring he was no longer interested. He then phoned three or four times in as many minutes insisting that we had to give him another chance because he had no other options and besides, he'd ordered furniture. We told him to cancel the furniture. Emails followed--all insisting he couldn't understand our position, none offering any proof of employment or explanation. 
I wish I'd trusted my first impression, and I hope the young person finds a suitable place. I'm so very glad it's not ours.