History Main / KeyUnderTheDoormat

Do you need to get into your house...or perhaps someone else's house...quickly? Have you suddenly realized you locked your keys ''inside'' your house, so that now you not only can't get your car started, but you can't get into your house to get your keys? What do you do? Why, you look under the doormat, of course!

Often TruthInTelevision, despite the advice of pretty much every crime prevention leaflet. Compare WeHaveTheKeys, which often occurs after a door is [[ThereWasADoor destroyed or bypassed]] when a less destructive alternative was available.

* In ''Series/GilmoreGirls'', pretty much all of Lorelai Gilmore's neighbors knew that the spare key was in the turtle.

* In ''{{WesternAnimation/Gargoyles}}'' Elisa knows that Matt keeps his on top of the doorframe to his apartment. Let me repeat, ''on top of the doorframe''. No tape, no string, just a key ready to be knocked off if someone slams the door too hard.

* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'':
** The [[WesternAnimation/SylvesterTheCatAndTweetyBird Sylvester and Tweety]] cartoon "WesternAnimation/TweetAndSour": Hoping to keep Sylvester out of the house when she is gone and away from Tweety, Granny hides the house key under the doormat. Unfortunately, she doesn't count on Sylvester already having hidden under the doormat himself!

** The Sylvester and Tweety cartoon "Tweet and Sour": Hoping to keep Sylvester out of the house when she is gone and away from Tweety, Granny hides the house key under the doormat. Unfortunately, she doesn't count on Sylvester already having hidden under the doormat himself!

* Doc Brown's laboratory in ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' has one of these. Oddly enough, it's not just a key but a whole keychain! Wouldn't the lump under the rug create a tripping hazard and defeat the mission of a "secret" key?

* ''Series/StellaUS'', Micheal, Micheal, & David wait for their landlord while in dignified positions. When the landlord can't enter due to the door being locked, they tell him to use the spare key under the mat, only for the Landlord to tell them there is no mat. as they had sent it to be dry cleaned. After picking it from the drycleaners and placing it in from of the door, the landlord lifts it to find the spare key underneath.

* Annie goes to use one she knows her parents keep above their door frame in ''[[Film/FatherOfTheBride1991 Father of the Bride - Part II]]'' but George, her father the protagonist, was woken by the sound of the car pulling up in the middle of the night and lets her in anyway before the have a heart-to-heart about her wanting to move away to Boston for her career.

* Annie goes to use one she knows her parents keep above their door frame in ''Film/FatherOfTheBride - Part II'' but George, her father the protagonist, was woken by the sound of the car pulling up in the middle of the night and lets her in anyway before the have a heart-to-heart about her wanting to move away to Boston for her career.

* In the ''ComicStrip/Nodwick'' strip "Hail to the Thief!", when the gang get word that their group's former rogue, Bezzler, is out of the sanitarium, Artax starts making plans to set up magical wards and fake quarantine signs, then turn invisible and flee. Before they can do any of these things, though, Bezzler wanders in commenting that they still keep the key under the "Go Away" doormat.

[[folder: Comic Strips]]

* In Creator/AlfredHitchcock's ''Film/DialMForMurder'', the key under the staircase carpeting is a [[IncrediblyLamePun key]] plot point.

* Bart did this in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''. In order to get into the locked school, he...yeah. Homer also did it it one episode TWICE, the first time to get into the nuclear power plant, the second time to get into the reactor! And furthermore, even the key inside the plant was hidden under a small rock lying on the pristine floor, potentially subverting this trope. Chief Wiggum did this to get in the police station while Bart's class was waiting outside during a field trip.

* In the pilot episode of ''Series/IronFist2017'', Danny Rand tries to enter his former residence from fifteen years ago using a key he knows is hidden outside (on top of the lintel rather than under the mat). SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome and it doesn't fit as the lock has been changed.

* On ''Series/{{Friends}}'' one of Ross' dates kept hers in the light fixture near her apartment door. It made the key hot, though. Seriously lady, that's a stupid place to put it!

* Double subverted in ''VideoGame/BrokenSwordTheSerpentsCurse''. Nico believes the key to her neighbor's apartment to be under the door mat but it's not there. It's hidden under the door mat's floor board.

* Doc Brown's laboratory in ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' has one of these.

* Bart did this in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''. In order to get into the locked school, he...yeah. Homer also did it it one episode TWICE, the first time to get into the nuclear power plant, the second time to get into the reactor! And furthermore, even the key inside the plant was hidden under a small rock lying on the pristine floor, potentially subverting this trope. Chief Wiggum did this to get in the police station while Bart's class is waiting outside during a field trip.

* ''Series/Titans2018''. Dick Grayson enters his old room in the Wayne mansion by climbing up to a window, then removing a spoon hidden in a crevice which he uses to jimmy the door open. Presumably this is from when he used to sneak out of the room as a child.

** ''Film/JustLikeHeaven'': When David locks himself out of the apartment Elizabeth's not-ghost tells him she keeps the spare under the nearby fire extinguisher. At the end of the movie David mentions using the same key to try and jog Elizabeth's memory after she wakes from her coma with no memory of him.

* ''Film/AFairlyOddMovieGrowUpTimmyTurner'': Magnate's he* ''Film/FatalAttraction''. Dan breaks into Alex's apartment using the spare key that he finds on top of the door frame.adquarters has the key hidden under the doormat.