Ask HN: I probably live next door to a drug dealer. Help?
~3 year HN member, temp account out of an abundance of caution.

TL;DR: My next door neighbor is probably dealing drugs, is suspected of having stolen weapons. Seems mostly normal when I see him from time to time. Anything I can do to help the police and/or keep my family safe?

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I live in a suburban semi-gated community (we have gates, but you just have to drive up to them to make them open) in Florida. All the deeds are restricted, all the houses are too big, all the yards are too small--we sometimes start looking for the phone only to realize that the ringing is coming from our next door neighbors'.

Our next door neighbor on the other side (who drives a riding lawn mower every weekend to mow his tiny yard, and whose unfenced dogs poop in my yard) has many frequent visitors at all hours who don't stay long, often with one or more people waiting in the car by the side of the road. Often parked in front of our house instead of his. The main vehicle parked in the driveway changes with unusual frequency--as of a few days ago, it's a decommissioned police cruiser (irony?).

Another family in our church lives further up the street in a house that's a similar color and shape to my next door neighbor. My wife talked to them yesterday after there were three police cruisers at their house late Saturday. Turns out they get rhythmic knocking on their window in the middle of the night from time to time, every incident of which they report to the police, who do respond but unsurprisingly don't manage to catch the would-be buyers. According to this family, they've been working with the police for 6 months, and the folks across the street from my dealing neighbors are taping the traffic flow outside the house. Apparently the police suspect them of dealing meth and of having stolen some guns recently. The police are supposed to be collecting evidence.

Interacting with them, they're friendly enough. I helped jump their car once. Their young-teen son doesn't seem well adjusted (not that that's so unusual), and the mom usually seems a bit stoned (not that some people don't just seem that way).

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Political digression:
I think I support drug legalization. I do not support illegal drug dealers. I'm aware that none of the observed behaviors constitute proof of wrongdoing, and I know that police may lie or exaggerate.

All the named actors here are white; alleged clients have a variety of skin tones.

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The fact that the police believe they have stolen weapons is concerning whether or not it's true, since I suppose it might lead them to pursue more intense modes of executing warrants in the future. The houses are very close together here indeed.

Questions:

* Is there a typical run time for these investigations?

* Is there anything I can do to help the police gather evidence? (They have stopped by a couple times with specific questions about the neighbors re: a vehicle possibly used in a robbery and a child welfare complaint, but not recently.)

* Is there a plausible benign explanation for all this that I'm missing?

* Should I be worried about my family's safety? (In the event of a midnight no-knock shootout, I guess it's good that our bedrooms are all on the other side of the house...)