Probably hard to get here (without using a rescue) as well. I wouldn’t know where to start if I wanted another one (if it wasn’t a rescue).
They are absolutely fantastic little animals but the leaflet doesn’t sound like it reflects true life with chinchillas. They are noisy, they do make a mess, are incredibly fast and can be destructive if they get to wooden furniture! As mentioned above, definitely don’t take them on lightly.
Mine used to wake me up in the night! He was downstairs at the other end of the house and I could still hear him, running about, chewing etc! Clean - well, they are in themselves clean, but when they have their sand baths it’s like taking 25 three years olds to a beach! I tried numerous sand bath houses and it still ended up absolutely Everywhere because he would jump out, shake and it would fly out of his fur! Like all small animals, a cage is not enough. Chinchillas are incredibly fast and need a lot of exercise. They can jump up to 6ft. They are also very small bodied under all that fur and can squeeze through very small gaps - the amount of times we had to prod mine out from behind cabinets that we thought we had blocked up! When mine was let out in the living room, it took three of us to get him back into his cage, he would easily jump four feet up onto the back of the sofa, run across the top, down the other side and escape before we could get near him! In the end it was easier to let him wear himself out (which took several hours) and wait until he took himself back off to his cage and then lock him back in! He was absolutely amazing though. Having him leap up onto the sofa and come and sit on my shoulder was just my favourite way to spend an evening!