House started occasionally being invaded by cops in New York (7)
I believe the answer is:
theatre
'house' is the definition.
(I know that house can be written as theatre)
'started occasionally being invaded by cops in new york' is the wordplay.
'occasionally' indicates alternate letters.
'being invaded by' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'cops in new york' becomes 'heat' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
The alternating letters of 'started' are 'tre'.
'tre' going around 'heat' is 'THEATRE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for theatre that I've seen before include "Scene of military activity" , "Place for drama" , "Audience" , "Where audiences may be present" , "stage productions" .)