A social media post warning people about a pair of dodgy water engineers has gone viral in Cornwall and beyond – because not everyone got the joke.

Hundreds of people have shared or commented on a bogus Facebook post warning people in the west Cornwall area to beware of two fraudsters gaining entry into homes.

Many Facebook users thought the pair looked familiar, but couldn’t quite place them.

That's because the two men pictured are actually ‘Harry and Marv’ - the infamous ‘Wet Bandits’ from the hit Christmas comedy movie Home Alone.

In the movie the bandits attempt to burgle a family home, but unknowing to them, an eight-year-old boy has been left behind and thwarts their attempts by setting up a series of booby traps.

The pair are known as the 'Wet Bandits' due to the fact that Marv has a tendency to leave the taps on in the houses they burgle.

On Sunday Mel Brolly, from Truro, posted the joke on her Facebook page, which has now been shared more than 1,800 times.

The joke has been adapted and shared in other parts of the country in previous years.

Accompanied by a picture of the pair, Mel’s post read: ***WARNING!!!*** These two men are going around the St Ives/West Cornwall area knocking on doors, claiming to be from Cornwall County Council and asking for entry to your home, to check your taps for possible leaks!

“DO NOT let them in, they ARE DANGEROUS!!!”

While the joke hasn’t been lost on most of those sharers, a surprising number of people have fallen for the festive prank.

One woman wrote: “Rum looking pair, if I had a leaky tap I would ask a plumber I knew, what's a leaky tap got to do with the council unless you're a council tenant perhaps? My dogs would see them off!!!”

Another person added: “Do they have a badge then don’t let them in, and usually Cornwall Council will write and let you know if they were doing that.”

Others were suspicious, but simply thought the culprits looked amusingly familiar.

“They look like the guys from Home Alone”, one person wrote. “Why do they look so much like the bad guys out of Home Alone,” another asked.

A man added: “The one on the right looks Daniel Stern out of Home Alone one of the burglars lol.”

Other Facebook users were then breaking it to them that the pair are indeed from the movies. When one woman realised, she wrote: “Omg!! They are from home alone!! It's a joke.”

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Cornwall Council engineers, of course, also wouldn’t be the authority responsible for leaky taps.

The legacy of Harry and Marv endures.