Our household noise is driving our neighbour insane.

We didn’t have any problems when her husband was alive. But, he must have listened to the tv at volume 99.

Not your problem but I’d put money on her being lonely and she’s found a reason to knock on your door for interaction.

She's being totally unreasonable. What you have described is just normal day to day living noises. If you were frequently playing music at top volume or doing DIY at all hours,I could understand her complaining,but griping about a toilet flushing or a shower running? Bonkers.

I had an ear infection following a cold six weeks flat on my back because of vertigo. Now certain sounds/pitch I find physically painful. I'm not generally going deaf more hypersensitive to them. I guess as others said it could be tinnitus

I want the hearing of a fucking bat when I’m that age too 😂
You’re just going about normal daily activities so she is just going to have to live with it.

Does a person's colour, weight and social class affect their hearing or whether they've got dementia? Because age does!

This was my thought too @DonnaBanana .
Could it be a way of getting your company for a little while?

I'd definitely try and catch the daughter to see what her take is.
We're in a semi and barely hear our neighbours. Sometimes hear their little boy run up or down the stairs or their washing machine on a spin but our house would have to be silent to hear it. I've apologised to them about the baby screaming through the night once or twice and they claim they can't hear a thing and we're in a new build so I'd be really surprised if your neighbour can genuinely hear so much noise it's causing this much distress.
Our old house was worse, we could hear loads of noise in the bathroom as they were internal. Mostly the kids singing and laughing in the bath, once heard the dad being sick all night with a bug, but would never dream of complaining about them going about their lives.
I think there's more to this one, but it does baffle me why someone would buy a terraced/semi detached house and then whinge they can hear their neighbours.

I wouldn’t be feeding into this as they are all perfectly normal household noises. It’s hardly as if you can’t have central hearing on, not flush your toilet or wash your hands etc. I would suggest white noise machine or earplugs for at night but not get sucked into a debate. But she needs to get used to this or invest in soundproofing or move. She can go to the council etc but they won’t get involved

I think I would pop a note under the daughter's windscreen wiper asking to have a chat as you are concerned about her Mum and want to be good neighbours for her. Take it from there.

Tinnitus sounds like a good shout.
I’d really try and get her daughter involved in this conversation.

We had the exact same problem with a neighbour; they had a new baby and would complain about EVERY tiny noise we made. The husband would go outside and tell off neighbours for mowing their lawn during baby's nap times. He complained my husband's voice was too deep and he could hear him talking in our living room through the adjoining wall. It got to the point I couldn't turn the hoover on without him banging on the door. We started off trying to be understanding as I know having a new baby is stressful.
It ended up with us having a screaming match in the street with them and we moved not long after. The entitlement was absolutely mind blowing.
You're not being unreasonable; you're not having raves until 4am everyday. She can get stuffed!

You’ve assumed this lady has hearing aids before OP confirmed it! What an ageist assumption!!

If you really want to help and not just ignore her , which is what I’d do , then tell her to get her daughter to ring you and arrange a time to meet when you / husband can run water , flush loos etc whilst you are round her neighbours house with her and the daughter to all listen to what noise there actually is . The problem is she may want to sit in silence reading all day but that’s not normal family behaviour

People who are deaf are often not totally deaf. My sister had a problem at work where she could hear an intolerable noise from a newly installed machine that no one else could hear. Because she is legally deaf, the managers ignored her at first. Eventually they got a consultant out and tested the machine to find it was emitting a very high pitched noise at well over the legally permissible levels. Even though she had little hearing at certain frequencies, she heard this very clearly. So dont write off her hearing even without hearing aids. I do think it is up to her to manage though - ear plugs, perhaps?

Unfortunately, if you aren’t detached, you should expect a reasonable amount of noise from adjoining properties, which you sound like it is more than reasonable!

It does sound like tinnitus 🙁 can you try and catch her daughter and have a word? You seem very kind and genuinely want to help but you can't be tiptoeing around your own house, we all make normal household noise!

Could she have tinnitus? It can happen with hearing loss

Bloody hell, you're lovely. What a thing to say.

Is she using complaining as a way of simply having a chat with you?
Maybe she has misophonia?. It is hell to live with ime. Maybe when her dh was around she didn't notice other sounds as much.
Suggest she gets a radio as background noise and she won't hear your household as much..

That might have been me. We had awful issues with our elderly ndn complaining about us having washing machine on late , hearing banging opened and yep it was tinnitus.

If it only became a problem when her husband died maybe this is not so much a genuine complaint but a lonely old person reaching out for a bit of human contact in the only way she knows how 😢

The problem is that once you start listening out for noise, you do "hear" it more.

I wonder if you would suggest to her that you will buy her the most expensive sound-cancelling headphones on the market? It sounds like she enjoys silence and is maybe annoyed by other sounds which must reach her.

I always think finding a compromise solution is best of all. Part of the problem, I feel, is that she lives alone (would be different if she had someone else there stomping around, washing, etc.).

It sounds like she maybe has tinnitus, I’d try and speak to her daughter and see if she’s heard anything and maybe ask if she could take her mum to an audiologist.

I wouldn't use a washing machine late because they can be pretty noisy when they spin, but everything else you've described is reasonable life noise. I wonder if it is a new hearing aid thing. Talking to the daughter to try and pinpoint it seems a good idea, I think listening to the recording will give you an idea of how bad it is (or isnt) and what it might be.

I would try and have a chat with the daughter if she's approachable. Explain the measures you've taken to try and identify the noises, and how you're struggling to hear what her mum is hearing. Maybe the lady needs her hearing checked again, or her hearing aids adjusted. Bizarre that she claimed to be able to hear gurgling noises if she couldn't hear you talking.