- Two home invasions reported in Ajax and Pickering
- Durham Regional Police are actively searching for suspects
- Incidents occurred in Durham Region neighbourhoods within Clear Guard service area
Durham Regional Police are investigating two separate home invasions in Ajax and Pickering. Front-door forced entry remains one of the most common vectors in the GTA, particularly when occupants are home or away during predictable hours. Residential doors in older Ajax and Pickering stock often rely on standard strike plates and single-screw frame anchoring, which yield quickly to shoulder or boot force. A determined intruder can breach a standard residential door in seconds. Door fortification—heavy-gauge strike-plate reinforcement, structural-screw frame anchoring, and multi-point lock geometry—resists this forced entry by distributing load across the frame and hinges, adding critical delay. Layered defence also includes security window film on accessible glass (sidelights, nearby windows, patio doors), which prevents hand-through reach after breakage and forces the intruder to spend additional time. Physical delay is the core defence: it gives occupants time to wake, call police, or move to safety, and it increases the likelihood that neighbours notice activity or that responding officers arrive while the intruder is still on scene.
How Durham Region typically gets hit.
Durham Region runs the Lake Ontario shore from Pickering's Liverpool corridor east through Ajax, Whitby, and Oshawa, then north into the rural-edge subdivisions of Bowmanville and Port Perry. The forced-entry pattern Durham Regional Police bulletins keep highlighting splits cleanly into two vectors: attached-garage tampering on newer-build subdivisions in north Whitby and Pickering, and rear sliding patio doors on lakefront properties in south Whitby and the Bay Ridges shoreline. Clear Guard runs Durham assessments out of our central GTA dispatch, accessible via the 401. Most homes are scoped within 48 hours of a request, with one-day installation typical for the residential scope of a Durham property.
- 01Install a door-reinforcement strike plate with 3-inch structural screws into the frame's solid wood, not just the jamb.
- 02Apply security film to sidelight glass and any ground-floor windows within arm's reach of doors or locks.
- 03Ensure exterior lighting illuminates all entry points and consider motion-activated fixtures to deter approach.
Door Fortification
The ARX Guard door fortification system reinforces where standard residential doors actually fail under kick force: the strike, the jamb, and the hinge side. We swap the factory strike for a heavy-gauge plate anchored with structural screws into the wall framing, replace the lock with the multi-point ARX hockey-stick locking system, and reinforce both hinge and lock-side jambs. Tested in our Oakville facility to absorb repeated impact loads that split standard door assemblies on the first strike. Compatible with smart locks, keypad locks, and fire-rated doors.
Security Window Film
XPEL Prime XR Security film is bonded to the interior face of existing glass. When the pane is struck, the film holds the shattered shards together — turning the typical 2-second smash-and-reach into a sustained forced-entry attempt against a glass surface that no longer separates. Optically clear, blocks more than 99% UV, compatible with tempered, laminated, single-pane and double-pane residential glass. Installed in a single day for most homes; backed by a 10-year manufacturer warranty plus a Clear Guard workmanship warranty on the install.
- Door SecurityPatio Door Security: The Most Common Entry Point for GTA Break-InsPatio and sliding doors are a common forced-entry target across the GTA. We explain why standard patio doors fail and what you can do about it without replacing…
- Door SecurityWhy Your Front Door Might Be Your Biggest Security RiskA standard deadbolt resists most hand pressure, but the door frame it is mounted in often fails first under repeated kick force. Here is what is actually at ris…
Local Watch is editorial commentary by Clear Guard on publicly reported incidents. We do not assert any facts beyond what the cited source reports.