So I've been on this forum for about two weeks and I'm finally getting around to this! I recently moved to Florida from Washington State and its amazing here. I have a Nanday conure named Rio and I love him to pieces. I've had parakeets since I was five years old and after they passed away I decided to take the jump to conures. I knew I wanted to rescue a bird instead of getting one from a breeder because there are just to many that need good homes. I found Rio on Craigslist(his name was Conure West) but he never really acknowledged that name so I figured he wouldn't mind a new one. The craigslist ad said rehoming fee of $200 which includes the bird, cage, food, bedding, toys, and perches. I thought I was getting a good deal until I got there. The woman that had him should be banned from ever having another pet anyways. The conditions I found my sweet bird in was terrible. He was outside in a nasty flimsy ferret cage with bars that were way to wide. He had cedar shavings on the bottom of the cage with a fire ant hill living with him. And if you have ever been bitten by fire ants you know how horrible and dangerous that is for a bird let alone a human. I don't think the cage had been cleaned in weeks. It's smelled of old rotting bird poop. The perches he had in his cage were either all chewed up or covered in bird poop. The toys had bugs and fire ants all over them. The extra bedding she wanted to give me had even more fire ant hills inside of it. I ended up telling her to keep the cage and everything in it. I didn't even mention the bedding because there was no way I was taking that to begin with. I got Rio in the carrier and just handed her the two hundred because at that point I just wanted to get out of there. By the looks of her I'm sure it went straight to her drug habit. She came running out with a garbage bag full of bird food that she assured me was inside and perfectly fine. So I just threw it in the trunk. I drove straight home and got the bird inside and put him in an empty room(still in the process of moving so hadn't unpacked things for that room). Then I went out to the car to throw the bird food away and to my surprise when I opened the trunk little black bugs(I think they were seed Beatles or something) crawling all other the bag and trunk. I threw the bag away and cleaned the trunk as best as I could. I ended up buying everything brand new. Now I have a happy talkative bird. I'm still trying to expand his diet but he's getting better everyday. He won't let me hold him yet but he's always walking up to me. I have no idea how old he is. The lady said 18 months but I'm not sure about that. She lied about plenty of other things. I don't know how she treated him. He does talk but all he says is shut up. I'm working on pretty bird and I love you because it breaks my heart when he says the words he does know. He's in the living room now so he's always in the middle of things. His favorite thing to do is scare the crap out of my mini schnauzer. He thinks it's hilarious. I'm still learning new things everyday about him and I'm just glad that I can give him a good forever home for the rest of his life.