Is there some implicitly required work out of the camera's shot? Like dropping by the store for cleaning supplies or taking recyclable waste somewhere?

@Bilkokuya Yes and no. The problem is that I didn't notice the issue or care to notice it till this December since firstly I didn't have the cameras and secondly, as said above, the house was empty for 3 weeks and she had specific tasks. Which were completed but in smaller time frame than the one reported.

@Xander Sorry, to rephrase better - if you had paid her a lump sum for the tasks, rather than paying her hourly - would you have been satisfied with her work output? I agree that her cheating you out of money is a real issue, I'm just trying to understand what is your opinion of her work output vs the cost. (say for example she took the entire time to do the tasks, because she was slower, would you have been happy - or is it still too expensive for what was achieved?)

@Bilkokuya These comments will probably get removed but yes, I am satisfied with her work output, that's why I overlooked the fact that she's been stealing from me for almost 2 years. She goes above and beyond to complete her assigned tasks and fix the mess we leave behind. And just to let you know, she's paid more than the normal rate for housekeepers in my city (which is one of most expensive cities in the world) but that's not a problem since we're happy with the work.

You won't know unless you ask. There are so many possibilities. For example maybe she padded her hours on some days because she worked extra time on others (and undereported those days). Maybe she went to get extra cleaning supplies and justified that time as part of her working shift. Maybe she entered the premises on an area not covered by your security camera. Maybe your security camera motion detector is not as good as you think. And those are just the easy ones to think of. There are probably lots of other possible reasons, good or bad, that would explain the discrepencies.

Is this person hired through an agency?

@AsheraH No, we found her through our church. She's properly hired etc.

" She's a hard worker and very trustworthy" - so at best you were half right. And you want to keep her?

@Xander A discrepancy of a half hour to an hour i highly doubt is that big of a difference to your pocket. Though it’s clearly money, the difference in what matters to you and to her are different....1.5 and 7 hours though is obviously a problem....Assuming you havent talked to her yet. Perhaps you should also look at how many times this woman worked extra hours and didn’t report them, like when she perhaps first started working for you to keep up a hardworking appearance and quality and is now ‘back billing’ by working less and reporting longer hours.

"the fact that she's been stealing from me for almost 2 years" that's an important point which is missing from the question! When you noticed items were missing did you report the theft to the police?

I am not a (labor) lawyer... Is it legal (in your jurisdiction) to use the security camera footage in a labor dispute that is clearly unrelated to security? I believe in some jurisdictions filming employees may be considered an invasion of their privacy, and thus be disallowed in legal proceedings. And even if it's explicitly agreed to use the cameras for clock-in/clock-out purposes, I would guess the onus would rest on you to prove that they had not malfunctioned. (So be careful referring to camera footage even in an informal discussion.)

@AaronF: He means "stealing time", not physical items...

You bolded the sentence, She's paid by the hour. Is that explicitly literal? In my area, often a cleaning person will estimate a sort of "shop rate" for a house, much like a mechanic looks up a book rate for a certain problem on a car. Then, the customer is charged that many hours, regardless of what the job actually took. This is why my cleaning service does - we are a 3 hour house. We pay them for three hours regardless of how long it takes each time.

Professional cleaners operate a timesheeting system by using an on-site telephone (typically a landline at the client's home or office) to ring a specific number which then gets logged. Failing that, you can just have them do a "send my location" to create a GPS timestamp

It’s possible your house cleaner simply undervalued their time and lowballed themselves. Most people pay a lump sum for house cleaning and don’t concern themselves with how long it takes. Just negotiate that and be generous about it especially if the cleaner is on their own and not employed by a service.

thanks @thirtydot . Not stealing, though, is it OP? It's breach of contract. Or do you call breach of contract "stealing" when a poor person does it?

@AaronF no, misreporting of hours to cause mis-billing is not just breach of contract. When an employer does it, it tends to be called "wage theft". It seems entirely fair to apply the same term to an employee fudging things in the other direction. At bare minimum its fraud, and not just failing to meet a contract.

@mbrig yes, I see the logic. It doesn't really quite sit right with me, though. When a lawyer rounds up a 10 minute phone call to the nearest hour for billing purposes, no one calls it theft. Also, if you employ someone for between 5 and 7 hours per day, then you're their employer and they're your permanent employee, and you should then give them things like a contract, a lunch break, paid holidays, and all of that stuff that comes with having a job.