Cobb County officials told Channel 2 consumer investigator Jim Strickland the law mandates that they investigate any code enforcement complaint.
The county's top code enforcer went on the record after Strickland discovered the Bells Ferry Landing neighborhood is besieged with complaints generated by one lone resident.
"If they've reported a violation, we investigate and enforce it, absolutely," said enforcement director Jerry Lanham.
Strickland asked if the obligation to check them out was a drain on resources.
"We have had 357 complaints filed in the neighborhood in the last four years, and I've only got nine officers to handle the entire county," Lanham said.
"Is that a yes?" asked Strickland.
"This subdivision gets a lot of attention from complaints being filed, yes, sir," Lanham said.
A complaint filed Tuesday about a trailer on the grass at a home one Hartley Woods Drive is number 358.
It's one in a long string filed by Deborah Serafin.
Serafin emailed a statement to Strickland, saying: "I have a right to live in a clean community, not one that looks like crap, because certain people do what they want to when they want to."
She reported Brian Halbman over red gas cans out front of his house.
"I sit up by my couch here, and I keep the blinds slightly open to wait for her to drive by every night," said Halbman.
Lanham said his officers, not Serafin or anyone else, decides if action is warranted.
"We're going to give everybody fair treatment out here," he said.
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