History Main / JanitorImpersonationInfiltration

** In "The Owl of Minerva", Sullivan and Sid pose as window washers in order to break into the police station.

* ''Series/FatherBrown'': In "The Owl of Minerva", Sullivan and Sid pose as window washers in order to break into the police station.

* Also done in ''[[Film/TheFastAndTheFurious Fast Five]]'', when Leo & Santos pose as janitors in order to reconnoiter the police station with their mark.

* ''Film/TheFugitive'' (1993). Kimble dresses as a janitor to get into a hospital and use its computer system to locate the One Armed Man. Gerard lampshades it when he sees the phony ID card:
-->''[with accent]'' "Desmondo, Jose Ruiz?"
* In ''Film/HeWalkedByNight'', Sgt.Brennan poses as a milkman to get close to Morgan's apartment to verify that he is the man they are looking for.
* Creator/AudreyHepburn's character in ''Film/HowToStealAMillion'' sneaks out of the museum disguised as a cleaning woman.
* In ''Film/{{The Innocent|1994}}'', 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!"
* The villains in ''Film/Interceptor2022'' get onto a secure military base in the middle of the Pacific Ocean by starting up a cleaning company and spending six years building up the legend of that company so that they can get hired to be the janitors for that base.

* ''Film/TheKiller2023''. The title character disguises himself as a recycling bin collector when he goes to kill The Lawyer, which gives him a convenient excuse to wear gloves and drag a skip bin that can be used for DisposingOfABody. However he waits until a [=FedEx=] courier shows up and lets the courier hold the door open for him, effectively combining this trope with DeliveryGuyInfiltration.

* The villains in ''Film/{{Interceptor}}'' get onto a secure military base in the middle of the Pacific Ocean by starting up a cleaning company and spending six years building up the legend of that company so that they can get hired to be the janitors for that base.

* ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' had an episode with a government agent mentor who turned up as the janitor. Kim didn't want anything to do with him because she thought he was just the janitor. He thought she always knew what he really was because he never expected his {{Canad|aEh}}ian secret agent uniform to be mistaken for a janitor uniform. He even had to explain he wasn't wearing a disguise.

* Chameleon does this in the very first issue of ''[[ComicBook/SpiderMan The Amazing Spider-Man]]'', leaving the real janitor bound and gagged in a closet.

* ''Comicbook/{{Catwoman}}'':

* This is made easy in the Creator/ForestWhitaker movie ''Film/DiaryOfAHitman''. A husband separated from his wife sabotages her TV and then sends the eponymous hitman in to repair it. Ironically she buzzes him up to her apartment without checking who he is because she thinks it's her ex come to visit.

[[Administrivia/TropesAreFlexible Other similar jobs]], from traveling merchants to prostitutes, from waiters to pest control, all of which have the same relative anonymity of the janitor and are BeneathNotice, may also qualify for this trope, and [[TruthInTelevision it has actually being successfully exploited throughout history]] at nearly every age. After all, even the most guarded room in the world still needs to be cleaned, and even the most guarded person needs to be serviced, and it's literally impossible to know every janitor, or plumber, or whoever else, in the face, especially if it's a new guy every week.