History Main / JanitorImpersonationInfiltration

* ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'': Parodied in "Tankin' It To The Streets", as Dale enters Bill's army base in his own exterminator uniform, then dresses as an officer, then back to an exterminator in order to check on Bill's medical records.

* ''Mr & Mrs Smith'' (1996). In the pilot episode, Mr. Smith (Scott Bakula) dresses up as a janitor to infiltrate a target installation and acquire information.

* Taking a leaf from Radio/TheShadow's book (see below), the Franchise/{{Batman}} has also masqueraded as the janitor at police headquarters. Sometimes his disguise amounts to a mop and overalls, a hat and a fake beard [[PaperThinDisguise over his Batman costume]].

* ''Radio/TheShadow'' used to maintain a cover identity as Fritz, the janitor at police HQ, that allowed him to snoop about in the police files to his heart's content.

Being that these people might be secret agents (and by proxy a MasterOfDisguise), there's a definite possibility of AlmightyJanitor overlap. Compare DressingAsTheEnemy, TheInfiltration, BathroomSearchExcuse, RoomDisservice, and DeliveryGuyInfiltration. Depending on what is done with the real janitor, may overlap with MuggedForDisguise, and you might want to be careful about running afoul of ConfrontingYourImposter. If the impersonator seems to do this often in different situations, it might be a case of NewJobAsThePlotDemands. May overlap with BlackTieInfiltration if infiltrating a party as the hired help.

* In the first ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork'' game, Mr. Match infiltrates and sabotages a number of houses, including Lan's, by posing as a repairman sent to do preventative maintenance in light of the recent attacks. You know, ''his own''.
* Played with in [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3 the third Metal Gear Solid game]]. At one point toward the end of the game Snake needs to do this to get access to the Shagohad and plant a series of bombs in the hangar. Sure enough, the soldiers don't notice, but if any of the other other techs/janitors see you, they'll know that you're not one of them and sound the alarm.

*** In Season 3, Matt Murdock tries to get into the hotel penthouse where Wilson Fisk is being held in protective custody by the FBI. He steals a jacket and trolley from an electrician van and enters via the service entrance, [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome but that only gets him as far as the hotel lobby]] where a suspicious agent stops him by demanding to see his room keys.
*** In "Upstairs Downstairs", Wilson Fisk hires a pair of assassins to kill Julie Barnes for fear [[MoralityChain she might sway Dex from his influence]]. The assassins disguise themselves as painters and use the pretense of making repairs in order to get into Julie's apartment block, where they surprise and BoomHeadshot her when she comes home, wrapping her body in the plastic they have covering the floor. Later when Dex reports to Fisk he passes the same two workers painting the corridor outside Fisk's office. Once Fisk is assured that Dex is still under his control, he gives a quiet nod to his underling who leaves the room and tells the painters to pack up and leave.

* ''Series/TheMarvelousMrsMaisel'': In season 2, Midge takes off with her family to spend the summer at the Steiner Mountain Resort up in the Catskills. Susie can't afford for Midge to take two months off from her standup comedy routine, so she follows Midge up to the resort, and gets in by simply wearing her normal attire and buying a toilet plunger. [[BavarianFireDrill Nobody bats an eye and just thinks she's another employee]], though it leads to some awkward conversations when Midge comes clean about her routine with her parents and reveals to them that Susie is her manager.

-->'''Bodie:''' Meter man, or plumber?\\

** There's a variation in "A Hiding To Nothing" where Doyle breaks into an apartment beforehand and sabotages the water boiler, so he'll have an excuse to come in later and fix it.

* In the ''Literature/{{Underdogs}}'' novel ''Acceleration'', Ewan, Jack, and Kate disguise themselves as the three apprentices of mechanic [[TheMole Oli Sharp]] so they can get onto Grant's airship and destroy it. Sharp murdered his three actual apprentices to give the Underdogs a chance.

* ''Series/TheProfessionals''. In "Rogue", Bodie and Doyle have to enter a tenement building, and have a brief discussion over which version of this trope to use.

!!Examples

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* In ''{{Manga/Ajin}}'', Satou's accomplices infiltrate the headquarters of Grant Pharmaceutical posing as the "Clean Fox Service".

* ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandaloneComplex''.

* In ''Anime/Interstella5555'', Octave does this in order to retreive the memory disks the alien band's unedited memories. It crosses overs with FailedASpotCheck, as the watchman doesn't realize that the janitor's uniform Octave is wearing is several sizes to small on him.

* Used in an issue of ''Comicbook/{{Catwoman}}'' when Selina infiltrates a police station. One cop even mentions that the cleaning lady is supposed to have the day off, but doesn't pursue the inconsistency beyond that.
** She did the same thing in another issue by posing as a maintenance worker. She lured the real maintenance worker to an apartment, where she left him BoundAndGagged in a closet after stealing his uniform and van.
* When she crossed over with ''ComicBook/{{Flare}}'', Lana the spy posed as a maid so she could get the drop on J. Reginald Butte, who had invited Flare to his party.

[[folder:Film]]

* In ''Film/TheInnocent1994'', Barlow breaks into Coleman Hall so he can [[TheKindnapper abduct Gregory for his safety]]. He tells the guard, "Pizza delivery." Once he's in, he yells over his shoulder, "You wanna keep this job, ask for ID!"

* Simon Templar does it in ''Film/TheSaint1997'', seeking into the BigBad's office disguised as a cleaning lady.

* In ''Film/Seven1979'', Ed infiltrates Mr. Lee's building by posing as a cleaner. He stands around dusting the outer office till he sees Lee's bodyguards leave.

* ''Literature/TheArtOfTheSteal2002'': Frank Abagnale has been called in to find out why a company's blank payroll checks are disappearing. The management is going on and on about their security procedures. When Abagnale sees the empty, clean trash cans, he promptly asks about the janitor. Management replies, sure, the janitor comes in to clean up, but why is that important?

** An especially interesting example in ''Literature/MonstrousRegiment'', where Polly's regiment have to disguise themselves as washerwomen [[spoiler: without revealing they're all really women.]] They are all unconvincing as females, including Polly.

* ''Series/TheBoys2019''. Hughie Campbell and Mother's Milk gain access to Popclaw's apartment by posing as technicians the landlord has contracted to install a new router. It helps that Hughie used to work in an AV store, so can pull off the role convincingly.

* ''Series/Daredevil2015''
** In Season 3, Matt Murdock tries to get into the hotel penthouse where Wilson Fisk is being held in protective custody by the FBI. He steals a jacket and trolley from an electrician van and enters via the service entrance, [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome but that only gets him as far as the hotel lobby]] where a suspicious agent stops him by demanding to see his room keys.
** In "Upstairs Downstairs", Wilson Fisk hires a pair of assassins to kill Julie Barnes for fear [[MoralityChain she might sway Dex from his influence]]. The assassins disguise themselves as painters and use the pretense of making repairs in order to get into Julie's apartment block, where they surprise and BoomHeadshot her when she comes home, wrapping her body in the plastic they have covering the floor. Later when Dex reports to Fisk he passes the same two workers painting the corridor outside Fisk's office. Once Fisk is assured that Dex is still under his control, he gives a quiet nod to his underling who leaves the room and tells the painters to pack up and leave.

** The Doctor [[DisguisedInDrag disguises himself as a cleaning lady]] while sneaking around the villain's compound in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E5TheGreenDeath "The Green Death"]].
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E6TheSeedsOfDoom "The Seeds of Doom"]], the Fourth Doctor disguises himself as a chauffeur to sneak into a mansion, an odd moment since his usual bluffing tactic is [[BavarianFireDrill being commanding]] and [[TheCharmer having charisma for miles]]. It convinces no-one — perhaps because of this, or perhaps because he was clearly still wearing his scarf under his coat.
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E3TheDeadlyAssassin "The Deadly Assassin"]], the Fourth Doctor disguises himself as a dressing room assistant to appear invisible while he steals himself a disguise, using only [[MasterActor voice pitch and body language]] as he was dressed only in his underwear at the time. Notably, the two Time Lords who are the focus of the scene don't even seem entirely sure that there was another person there at all.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E5RiseOfTheCybermen "Rise of the Cybermen"]]: The Doctor and Rose disguise themselves as waiters to crash a party.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E6TheCaretaker "The Caretaker"]]: The Twelfth Doctor gets himself employed as a caretaker at Coal Hill School to fight a KillerRobot. Incidentally, this is a rare exception where the person actually does get hired.
** [[Recap/DoctorWho2016CSTheReturnOfDoctorMysterio "The Return of Doctor Mysterio"]]: Lucy Fletcher disguises herself as a cleaning woman to sneak around Harmony Shoal.

* ''Series/JessicaJones2015'': Jessica is told that David Kawecki, a janitor at IGH who took the fall for a murder committed by [[spoiler:Jessica's mom]], is doing life in Birch Psychiatric Hospital. He's locked up in the high security wing in the basement, where the only people allowed are shrinks under the escort of armed security guards. To get access, Jessica asks Oscar to forge her an ID that's good enough to fool an inspection by the guards so she can get access to Kawecki posing as a shrink.

-->'''Bodie:''' Meter man, or plumber?
-->'''Doyle:''' What about lift engineer?
-->'''Bodie:''' How d'you know there's a lift?
-->'''Doyle:''' That's a point. ''(presses intercom buzzer)''
-->'''Female voice:''' Yes?
-->'''Doyle:''' Uh, sorry to trouble you, madam, it's the plumber here. It's about the leak in Number 32. Is that the one above you?
-->'''Female voice:''' ''(alarmed)'' Yes, it is!
-->'''Doyle:''' Well you see, the tenant's not answering. We were wondering if you could let us in.
-->'''Female voice:''' Why, yes, of course.

[[folder:Radio Drama]]
* Parodied in ''Radio/AdventuresInOdyssey.'' A character ''does'' sneak into [[BigBad Regis Blackgaard's]] center of operations during the ''Darkness Before Dawn'' saga - the catch is that the character, Bernard Walton, is [[GenuineImposter really a janitor!]] He uses that and [[ObfuscatingStupidity a convincing dumb act]] as his cover, and it fools Blackgaard.

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* ''Webcomic/{{Nodwick}}'': After Artax fails to convince a demonic doorman to let the party in Nodwick tries telling him they're here to clean out the moat, he lets them pass immediately.

* This ''ComicStrip/WhatsNewWithPhilAndDixie'' [[http://www.airshipentertainment.com/growf/growfcomic/strips/growf_20070520.jpg strip from Dragon Magazine #63]] has a guy dressed as a cleaning woman sneaking into a computer lab.
* In ''{{Webcomic/XKCD}}'', [[Creator/RandallMunroe Randall]] remarks that he has seen this trope so many times in [[TheCaper heist movies]] that he automatically assumes it's in force [[https://xkcd.com/2077/ whenever anyone asks him to open a door.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': The gang infiltrated a royal party by having the boys pose as servants. The girls just used the fact that [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections Toph is from an important family]].

-->'''Bodie:''' Meter man or plumber?
-->'''Doyle:''' Plumber, or lift engineer.

-->'''Doyle:''' That's a point. ''(presses intercom buzzer)''

-->'''Female voice:''' Yes, it is.

* Used regularly in ''Series/PersonOfInterest'', as posing as a of low-level employee is Finch's preferred method of getting into places unnoticed, usually as some sort of 'IT guy', engineer or the like.
** John has used this as well, sometimes to get close to the POI. His first meeting with Zoe was by posing as her driver. She was savvy enough to actually call and check, but Finch redirected the call to himself.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheGreatNorth'': In Season 2 "[[Recap/TheGreatNorthS2E10DipTheHallsAdventure Dip the Halls Adventure]]", After Beef and Jerry tracks down's Jerry's missing phone, which was taken by the same person to stole his Bigfoot costume, at Winter World and they can't get inside due to being closed because of a private party, Beef gets the idea to get inside by sneaking through the employee entrance and Jerry has them both wear employee costumes to blend in.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheGreatNorth'': After Beef and Jerry tracks down's Jerry's missing phone, which was taken by the same person to stole his Bigfoot costume, at Winter World and they can't get inside due to being closed because of a private party, Beef gets the idea to get inside by sneaking through the employee entrance and Jerry has them both wear employee costumes to blend in.

* Radio/TheShadow used to maintain a cover identity as Fritz, the janitor at police HQ, that allowed him to snoop about in the police files to his heart's content.