house detective

plural house detectives · alternative house-detective

1. A person employed by a privately owned establishment, such as a hotel or large retail store, with the job of preventing wrongdoing and apprehending violators of laws or other regulations.

   I went to Cloran, the house detective at the hotel here in New York where Deemer was murdered.

   1920, Frank L. Packard, chapter 21, in The White Moll

   1 more example

   I am usually uncomfortable in such five-star, five-diamond places. . . . I'm afraid I'll break something. Or be found out, collared by the house detective as an interloper unworthy of the surroundings.

   2005 April 24, Denis Horgan, “The scene of the South”, in Spartanburg Herald-Journal, US, retrieved 06 Feb 2010