Our household noise is driving our neighbour insane.

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Our next door neighbour is a sweet lady in her late eighties. She hears everything through our shared wall.

Hand on heart I can say we’re not loud people. I’m not a huge fan of background noise myself therefore rarely have the tv/radio on.

Things she’s complaining about are normal day-to-day, our shower, she hears our pipes, central heating (debatable!), washing machine etc.

I’ve just gone over to hers whilst DH flushed the toilet + ran the shower. Yes, you can hear them if you listen out for them in total silence but it’s minimal, nothing out of the ordinary.

I’ve said to DH about not using our en-suite after 10pm. DH who is usually a people pleaser has zero patience for this and says if he wants a shower at midnight, he should be able to have one.

The same with the washing machine, if there’s a convenient time for her for us to have it on. The problem is that she’s essentially housebound and therefore is always at home. Usually sitting in silence, reading next to our shared wall.

Could she have tinnitus? It can happen with hearing loss

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!

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!

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?

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

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

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!

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

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.

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'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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

But she maybe complaining about noises only she can hear inside her head. Which I'm sure she finds very distressing.

Also, if her husband had the TV on 99 and now she’s sitting in silence, absolutely not your problem either, but can she work the TV?

My aunt had an elderly neighbour like this, who became very angry and distressed about imagined noises from her flat. Started complaining about sounds coming through the adjoining wall. This escalated to complaints about loud music, which turned out to be her own radio but which she insisted was my aunt controlling it through the wall... In this case, it turned out that the elderly neighbor was developing dementia and this fixation on imaginary/hallucinated/exaggerated sounds was an early symptom.

I had an elderly neighbour like this I think she was just lonely and it was an excuse to come round for a chat. It was just normal noises like the boiler, washing machine ect absolutely nothing I could do about it.

OP our neighbour was the same.

Had hearing aids and was obviously to some degree deaf.

His son was lovely and helped mediate, and it turns out when you're going deaf and you're of a certain age and your brain can't always process sounds the way it used to it tries to fill the gaps so you perceive normal daily sounds that aren't quite there or that don't exist at all.

It's an early sign of cognitive decline especially in people who are housebound and have nothing else to keep their minds occupied with.

It sounds unreasonable on her behalf but I tell you, my neighbour has a boiler attached on a party wall and the noise was making me really ill. Keeping me up all night, jolting me awake. The anxiety was through the roof.

It made me more sensitive to all noise as you were on eggshells listening out.

This is honestly hideous and imagine one annoying noise has triggered her.

Luckily a new tenant moved in and allowed my friend a heating engineer to fix the issue now all is OK but it was an awful couple of YEARS! Totally fine with normal household noise now but I was going bonkers.

Also washing machines/tumble driers on at nighttime unless you are detached can be really antisocial.

Could you have high pressure water or the ensuite a faulty pump or one that could be sound insulated maybe?

Yes as previous posters said I’m wondering about the start of dementia or something psychiatric if tinnitus etc gets ruled out? I think you’ve been more than generous, I would try and speak to the daughter then stay out of her way (and live your life with normal noise!)

It’s probably tinnitus related, I get a lot of horrible noises and ringing.

Also my older neighbour kept hearing loud humming noises, she thought from our house, but us and the other sides neighbours couldn’t hear it. I was listening for three days and worried there was a leaking pipe somewhere. Turns out she went to the doctor and even though she has never had ear problems or hearing loss it was blood pressure related.