Intrigued by long-running advert in Guardian: Home help needed for female writer...

A question about : Intrigued by long-running advert in Guardian: Home help needed for female writer...

I am intrigued by a job advert that I happen to notice in the job section of the Saturday Guardian every week. The same advert has been running for years:

HOME HELPS NEEDED BY FEMALE WRITER IN NOTTING HILL GATE
Employer is slightly disabled.
Several mornings during weekdays.
Ј10.00 per hour. Housework, shopping, and whatever comes up. OVer-qualified people welcomed. A sense of humour helps and you'll need to be reliable, practical, keenly helpful and able to commit to a minimum of 6 months.
References required.
Email (no attachments please) with covering letter and CV including full contact details.
nottinghillhelp@tisali.co.uk

I've done a google search and all I can find is people asking the same questions as me:

Why has this same advert been running for years?
What is this all about?
Is it a 'front' for something?
Why are attachments not allowed (how else could you send your CV?)
Why is the word 'reliable' in bold?

Anyone feel like sending in an application to see what happens?

Best answers:

• I've noticed it as well and assumed it's either a fake vacancy by an agency recruiting carers, or some sort of con. It's been in there week after week for years. Either that or she is a nightmare to work for and everyone walks out after a few days
  Has anyone ever applied?
• There was a blog by someone who applied for every job advertised in the Guardian for 1 year (https://guardianwork.blogspot.com/200...3_archive.html )
  Whilst it notes that he applied for the role I never traced a response to this application
• I've often thought the same. I decided that the employer must be a complete nightmare to work for if she keeps having to advertise!
• Surely the cost of advertising week after week in a National newspaper must be enormous - there must be something going on!
  Edit: just found the prices here: https://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-file..._April2011.pdf
  The minimum cost for the 'General' job section on Saturday would seem to be Ј90. That's equivalent to paying someone for 9 hours work at the rate they are advertising. The plot thickens....
• Well there's only one sure fire way to find out! Anyone going to volunteer to be a guinea pig?
• I'd be willing to give it a go - although I live a long way from central London, so will have to make up a ficticious address - come to think of it, everything should be ficticious in case it is really dodgy. How are you supposed to send a CV and covering letter without attachments?
  Edit: just seen your post emsywoo123. Let's both do it and compare results. What's the betting that we don't get a reply though?
• Only problem is if they respond by phone or letter rather than email then we will never know
• I'm intrigued. Thanks gineau pigs -I await an update with baited breath
• This is intriguing! I will be watching this!
  Mainly cos i is nosey
• Well I emailed my 'application' off last night, so now just waiting to see what happens next - will be straight back with an update as soon as I hear anything.
• So if it has been advertised for years, has it always been Ј10 an hour or does the hourly rate go up? How intriguing.
• Well................................
  I've heard nothing!
• Maybe it contains a secret message sent by MI6. Those numbers stations exist and as far as I know there has never been an alternative explanation for their existence.
• I saw this last night and am really intrigued by it! I've got a few theories but nothing that stands up to scrutiny.
  1) It's a placeholder to fill unsold space on the page. But if this were the case it wouldn't be needed every week and wouldn't the paper put their own logo or ad for another section of the paper into the space? Anyone know if it is in the online version or just the newspaper?
  2) Someone placed the ad, requested it to run until further notice, set up a dd then died, emigrated, whatever. Sounds plausible, but a thread on Mumsnet shows it has been running since 2007 at least and the salary has increased from Ј7 to Ј10ph over the years. So the ad is still being actively maintained. In fact it has turned up on all the London universities' online job boards, placed 23 January 2012!
  3) It's a coded message for spies, terrorists, who knows? The wording of the first two lines reads awkwardly and I wondered if the first letter of each word (or 2nd, 3rd...) spells something. (Or maybe the number of letters in each word - the misspacing of Notting Hill Gate is odd, for a writer as well!) It isn't in English or any language I've seen but it could be used with a one-time-pad so each week it says something different to those with the pads to decode it. However, the OP has noticed the ad, others on other forums have too, probably plenty more have but not spoken online about it, and people who speak in code wouldn't want to draw attention to themselves. A different ad each time would deflect attention and using the same code every time makes it easier to crack.
  4) Didn't MI5 once recruit via things that had to be decoded in order to see what the message was and find out how to apply for the job? Or am I making that one up?
  5) It's an Alternate Reality Game or viral marketing. These start via a website, ad, youtube vid with a phone number or e-mail that people have to contact, then leading to further puzzles to solve as the game continues. But people are replying to the ad and getting no response so it can't be that, and sometimes these games stay dormant for a few months before players pick up on it, but not 5 years surely, whoever is running it would have given up. Plus the cost: Ј90pw for 5 years = Ј23,400!
  In other words, I've no idea! It's somebody - or a group of somebodies - who have Ј23k to burn and almost seem to want to be found out.
• haha yeah I would love it to be some sort of MI5 secret recruitment thing. Or have we all been watching too much TV?