Rodney the rooster is, to put it bluntly, kind of a jerk.
He's loud and he's inconsiderate, and he struts around like he owns the place. Legally, he's not even supposed to be there, but he doesn't care. He's a free-range terror, and he's gonna do whatever he cock-a-doodle-damn well pleases.
"We're just kind of hoping maybe a dog or a coyote will take care of it," Sgt. Arelis Rivera, a code enforcement officer with the Norcross Police Department, conceded Monday. She sounded both bemused and defeated, joking but only partly.
Rodney -- whose name comes from nothing more than a random, alliterative musing from another code enforcement worker -- has plagued the city of Norcross since at least last fall. He started over near Western Hills Drive, but has recently made a roost -- and a ruckus -- over on Goodwick Way.
Norcross police get regular calls and noise complaints, but code enforcement isn't properly equipped for rooster wrangling. Gwinnett County animal control hasn't been able to get its hands on Rodney either, Rivera said.
Last July, the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners passed a new ordinance allowing homeowners with at least half an acre of property to keep backyard chickens. Roosters were a no-go from the get-go, but don't tell that to Rodney or his owner -- who has admitted ownership, Rivera said, but seemingly given up on the pursuit.
"I don't know what else we can possibly do," Rivera said. " ... Rodney's our neighborhood nuisance."
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