While we have a track record on this Forum of hammering people who lay down timber floors and expect others to deal with the noise, there is an area that we haven’t really explored and that’s increased sensitivity to noise that some people acquire with age or hearing damage.
A dear friend of ours (now departed) suffered from this and she drove her neighbours mad with her banging and shouting at them to try to get them to be less noisy. It was terribly frustrating for both them and her.
As THIS website shows, increased sensitivity to noise is a fact of life for some people and can be a result of damage to hearing and/or simply ageing:
Here are some symptoms listed by the website:
Very quiet sounds are well tolerated, while ordinary sounds like voices at conversational volume are experienced as too loud or distorted.
The person’s own voice seems too loud or distorted.
Low intensity sounds, such as the noise of a refrigerator, seem too loud.
Sudden, loud noise can cause discomfort and pain.
A loud noise can worsen sound intolerance for some time.
Loud noises can worsen tinnitus and distortion.
Loud noises can cause a ‘popping’ sensation inside the ear.
Now, there is no way of knowing whether the downstairs neighbour in this scenario suffers from this but I would think it would be worth checking out.
So, in the first instance, I would be writing to the rental agent and strata manager to say that you genuinely don’t believe that you are creating excessive noise and you are concerned that your neighbour is suffering from a common medical condition that causes oversensitivity to noise.
To help establish the facts, you are happy to allow acoustic testing to be done while you go about your daily life, provided the downstairs neighbour avails herself of a medical test for noise sensitivity.
There is no cure for noise sensitivity but there are ways that it can be moderated which makes everyone’s lives more livable.
And i think this gives you the opportunity to show you are sympathetic to your neighbour without caving into complaints that may turn out to be genuine but unreasonable.