house detective

• house-detective

house detective (plural house detectives)

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

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

   • 2005 April 24, Denis Horgan, “The scene of the South”, in Spartanburg Herald-Journal, US, retrieved 6 Feb. 2010:

     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.

• security guard

• “house detective”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.