'Three Village Buy and Sell' Facebook Group Pops Up

The idea started when Three Village resident Jamie Capobianco Sileo realized something as she sold various things in a Nassau-Suffolk "Buy and Sell" online group.

"I found that no one wanted to drive to Setauket to pick up things," she said in a message to Patch.

Now, she has started a Facebook group just for local residents: "Three Village Buy and Sell," an alternative to Craigslist with a more local feel. In just a couple of weeks, the group has more than 200 members.

"I have sold one thing and bought one thing already," Sileo said. "It sort of runs itself."

Among the rules of the group:

• Buying is a first-come-first-serve system. Interested buyers write the word "interested" to let sellers know they've got their sights set on something, and the seller starts with the first person to express his or her interest. Buyers get 12 hours to respond to a seller's message before the seller can go on and offer the item to the next interested person.
• If you're searching for a particular item, you can enter a post that starts "ISO" – meaning "in search of."
• Sellers should delete items once they have been sold; items older than three months will be deleted.

Visit Three Village Buy and Sell to check out the group.