Code enforcement now investigating property owner after officials called out 50 times in 6 months

COBB COUNTY, Ga. — Channel 2 Action News has learned more about a property and its owner where Cobb County neighbors say they’ve been complaining about issues for a while.

We first told you about the complaints Wednesday, after Channel 2 Cobb County Bureau Chief Michele Newell learned police had been called to the home in question dozens of times for a range of issues, including violence.

Between 2023 and 2024, police have filed nearly 20 reports for incidents involving drugs, overdoses, aggravated battery and a homicide at the home. Wednesday, we reported police had been called to the property more than 50 times.

Now, we’re learning more about what’s been allegedly happening at the home that’s gotten police, and code enforcement, involved.

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Newell was at the Cobb County Jail on Thursday because the homeowner, Brian Veltrop, was arrested and charged for having a disorderly house.

While Veltrop bonded out, Channel 2 Action News learned that county code enforcement has cited him several times for what is outside of his home.

Now, they’re trying to track him down for more recent code violations.

Outside of Veltrop’s home on Pat Mell Road, you can see all kinds of furniture, a number of vehicles and trash.

“Code enforcers have been out there more than two dozen times. They’ve filed multiple citations and they are trying to do what they can,” Ross Cavitt, Cobb County Communications director, told Newell.

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These code enforcement cases show the number of times they’ve used resources to address the problem. You can see in county records how often they’ve inspected the property, found violations and cited Veltrop over the past several years.

“A couple times, we’ve cited the gentleman who owns the property, he’s cleaned it but then we get a different set of complaints about different things. When he goes to court, he can be find $1,000 per citation up to 60 days in jail per count, and that can add up after a while,” Ross said.

Police say they are familiar with Veltrop too.

After being called to the home dozens of times in the past six months, Cobb police charged Veltrop with having a disorderly house. Now, code enforcement officials are searching for Veltrop, which they say they’ve done several times in the past already.

“They are currently looking for him again on this third case that involves people living outside the house on the property and stuff being stored outside the property,” Ross explained. “The next step for code enforcement is to really go out and hire a process service to try and track this guy down. It’s an expense for taxpayers but he’s facing some citations.”

It’s important to understand what code enforcers can do in these situations, which is what they’ve been doing: inspecting the property and citing the owner for violations.

They can also report the property to state environment officials, who would go out and inspect the property to determine whether or not it’s a house people can safely live in.

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