When the great split finally happened, the group wasn't happy.
The rumblings started on the soccer field, as kids ran around for their Saturday training.
"Isn't it terrible?" said one parent. "They've split us into not two but three groups. It's divisive! It's a bad idea."
"I know - we're becoming a split community," agreed another.
They weren't talking about the soccer teams, though. They were talking about their local Buy Nothing group on Facebook, one that had, in the past month, been sensationally divided.
The Watson/Hackett group had been one of the most active - too active for the moderators, all volunteers, who decided, in April, to split the group into three.
Hackett is now its own group, while Watson, the fast-growing inner north suburb, has been split into north and south.
For the facilitators, and based on the Buy Nothing philosophy, it was a purely practical move.
But the good citizens of Hackett and Watson - both its southern, established zone and the much newer northern sphere - aren't so sure.
To them, it feels much more like the pool of good stuff to be had - everything from furniture and electronics to kids' clothes, canned food and moving boxes - is steadily diluting.
One minute, they're scrolling through tantalising offerings from all three areas - an unworn baseball cap here, a set of curtains there - and the next, they're blocked, and being told they can only participate on their hyper-local home turf.
But hyper-local is the name of the game here.
A community-building project conceived in the United States as part of the zero-waste movement, the Buy Nothing ethos has spread like wildfire through inner-city suburbs in most of Australia and many parts of the world.
The Facebook group admits members based solely on their suburb of residence; they're encouraged to give away - or "gift" - unwanted items to their neighbours, while making requests for things when needed.
It's a cheerful, ethical way of dealing with unwanted stuff, or picking up new things for free, although the concept of money in the Buy Nothing world is generally frowned on.
Instead, it's all about meeting your neighbours, moving easily between houses and streets to deposit or pick up things, and, in theory, making life-long connections that can endure well beyond the bounds of Facebook.
But like so many heartwarming community initiatives, it's become a victim of its own success, and the more popular it's become, the more hyper-local it has to stay.
And, true to many communities, there are rules to follow, and lingo to observe; things are "gifted", any mention of money - or monetary value - is frowned upon, no alcohol can be offered, and when groups split up, it's called "sprouting", rather than the more negative "splintering".
These aren't factions, after all, but groups becoming ever more cosy.
And as for rules, a big one is that you must wait - at least a few hours if not a full day - after posting an item to be gifted, rather than giving it to the first responder. "Mindful gifting" is the order of the day, and gifters are encouraged to consider all applicants, many of whom may have a compelling story, cute dog pic or endearingly bad joke to pep up their request.
It's all very feel-good, until you're told you no longer have access to that suburb you used to get such great stuff from.
But these, say long-term members, are just growing pains.
The angst and hand-wringing on the one hand is often met with an indulgent chuckle on the other.
Chief among these comes from the man who set up the very first Buy Nothing group in Canberra back in 2013, Greens candidate for Canberra Tim Hollo.
He has watched the movement spread through the suburbs over the years, doing exactly what it's supposed to, and much more.
"What happened is that I was looking to borrow a white shirt for one of my kids for a music performance, and I asked some friends on Facebook and then like, literally the next day somebody was saying, Hey, can I borrow your kayak?" he says.
"A few things in a row happened like that, and I thought, surely there must be some way of actually making this happen more easily."
He could see that the Buy Nothing concept would work in Canberra and, on the advice of the American founders, set up a group that only covered what seemed, at the time, to be a smaller area, the Inner North, as he lived in O'Connor.
"Literally, within weeks, we had hundreds of members and within months, there were other groups sprouting up around the city," he says.
"And soon enough, we had our first situation of this kind." He's referring to the inevitable grumbles that accompany the splitting up of groups, like the Great Watson-Hackett divide.
Today, there are at least 45 Buy Nothing groups across Canberra, with around 40,000 members.
Many of the groups take in several suburbs at once, but many more cover a single suburb, or even a partial one, like East Kambah or North Watson.
And some are more active than others.
Art educator Kate Matthews says her Yarralumla rental is filled largely with bits and pieces she's scored off Buy Nothing.
But until recently, she lived in Downer, and had access to the vivacious Dickson/Downer group.
Now in a group that covers Yarralumla, Kingston, Deakin, Forrest, Barton and Parkes, she says there's not nearly as much stuff being offered or inquired about.
"A lot more gifting was happening over on the north side," she says.
Perhaps, she theorises, it's because the more established - and moneyed - Inner South areas have a smaller turnover of people needing to offload stuff.
And while she's attracted to the ethical, community-minded feel of the network, she admits to being constantly tantalised by the legendary range of things that can be picked up.
"I got a gorgeous leather lounge suite in pristine condition, some art, bedside tables, and quite a lot of plants," she said.
Most recently, she scored a 1960s Danish mobile, one that, in a different slice of life (no money-talk on Buy Nothing, remember), would be worth between $150-$200.
But a lot of what appears on Buy Nothing forums is stuff that's "circling the rim of landfill", she says.
A quick poll of various members across the city turns up a strikingly diverse - and curious - selection of things. A mop and bucket, a pile of sticks, an "ornamental almond trunk - cut down three days ago so still green" - two skivvies made for whippets ("Silliest whippet picture gets them!")
There's also a bag of feijoas, a set of Japanese china plates, "most of" a 1kg bag of coffee beans ("from Woolies - I bought the wrong thing"). One person asked for, and received, a Kindle.
Matthews has also heard the legend - an anecdote repeated by another user - of a car being offered over in Dickson. Not only that, but the vehicle - roadworthy but unregistered - had originally been obtained through Buy Nothing, and was now being "paid forward".
She also recalls being gently reprimanded when she helpfully suggested to a member looking for old-school Canberra red bricks that they could pick them for $2 each at the Green Shed.
"I was told I wasn't allowed to suggest places to buy things," she says.
She has also got rid of - gifted that is - her own fair share of otherwise inconsequential stuff, including "12 Chux dish wand replacement heads. I bought the wrong brand - twice!"
But Hollo says the Buy Nothing movement is more than just a trading post, like Freecycle or Gumtree.
"It's not just about the borrowing and the giving away and the asking for, it's actually about building social cohesion. It's about building networks," he says.
"The ideal situation is that you can build this kind of network where you can walk from home to home, and you know lots of people in your neighbourhood, and you're actually building this sense of connection in your neighbourhood. And that has got to be pretty local, but it also has kind of a maximum size on it."
He has seen all sorts of things being offered on the site - most memorably a piano - but his peak Buy Nothing moment was the time he asked for - and received, of course - space in someone's recycling bin.
"I forgot to take my recycling out, and there was no more space and I had a bunch of stuff that I needed to put in my bin," he says.
"Lots of people were saying, that's hilarious, you're actually asking for negative space."
Another long-time user is Hackett resident Meg Clark, an environmentally conscious citizen who had even tried to set up her own, similar community swap group at one stage.
She first got wind of the Great Divide - the sprouting - when she and her partner did one of their regular clean-outs a few weeks ago.
They had "not a peep" when they offered some things to the group.
"I personally like the idea of it being hyper-local, but we've had trouble getting rid of things since it's changed to Hackett only," she said.
But she knows, based on experience, that things will settle down, more people will join the Hackett group, and people will adjust.
"Some people are only on it to get things and other people will actually believe in it, in the spirit that Tim set it up for, and it's got to cater for both groups," she says.
"You're going to have your high-and-mighty idealogues like me, and there are the other people on it besides us, and it's just as legitimate. It's just that I can see both sides of it."
All the same, she worries that the whole thing has become very, well, middle-class.
"Although it's a good idea, it would be so much nicer if our suburbs were more mixed," she says.
"We are in danger of becoming quite class segregated, and I think the point of it was meant to be that we overcome those things and we kind of help each other across those classes."
She says it makes her cross, after putting out the household tat for collection, to see someone drive up in a BMW to collect it.
"I think, I didn't mean to give it to them!" she says.
Another long-timer who has seen it all is Belconnen moderator Amanda Street.
She joined the group five years ago, back when it was a single group for all of Belconnen - a concept that's now hard to fathom.
The college teacher now moderates the Melba-Spence group, but she well remembers when it split off - sprouted - from Evatt and McKellar a while back.
"They just get smaller and smaller, but they're not actually getting smaller, they just become more localised," she says.
"I think that people forget that it's not about stuff, it's not about getting freebies.
"It's really about building connections with your neighbours and your community."
She's seen more than one expensive mountain bike pop up - missing a gear, or no longer wanted. She once gifted a "relatively new" dishwasher, surplus to her needs after her family moved house.
"But I've also gifted things like shampoo that I used once and I didn't like the smell of. It's something I would normally throw out," she says.
There's also an awful lot of food up there, which bothers some people but not others; one woman regularly bakes cakes but doesn't keep ingredients on hand - she simply gives away the remaining flour, butter and eggs, often with the recipe to go with it.
Street also gave away her late mother's sewing equipment, to a woman who makes quilts for cancer patients at Canberra Hospital.
So much for the grumblers about groups splitting, when so much goodness abounds in our suburbs.
But Street can see why people hate the inevitable change.
"I used to get lemons from this great person in McKellar, who's now no longer part of my crew," she says.
"But then I got lemons from someone else - that's how it all works out in the end."
