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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Cheryl Fountain has a philosophy about life: love what you do. If you don't love what you do, stop doing it.

Fountain found what she loved at a young age. She would sneak into the change rooms at her brother's hockey games and scrub the porcelain sinks with brown dish towels and bubblegum pink soap.

Cheryl Fountain uses her trusty steamer to clean a toilet. Fountain's steamer heats up to 240 degrees Fahrenheit and can be used to clean virtually any surface without using chemicals. - Lauren McKeon/NNSL photo

"The janitor would kick me out. He was so mad," recalled Fountain, laughing. But Fountain loved it.

From then on, cleaning just "kind of followed me," she said.

A little more than five years ago, Fountain worked at Canadian Tire in Yellowknife for $12 an hour. She realized then she didn't love her job.

"What can I do?" she asked herself. "I can clean. I've been doing it all my life and I didn't even notice," she said.

Fountain soon quit her job and started her own cleaning business.

She later named it The Cleaning Factory, a moniker dreamt up by her then-five-year-old daughter who once told Fountain's mother "mommy is busy with her cleaning factory."

Now, five years later, she has revamped her business and geared it toward move-out cleaning and speciality services. Luckily for Fountain and her business, the very thing she loves sends most people running.

"No matter how cool, calm and collected you are, (moving out) is going to get you stressed out," said Fountain.

"I can take the stress out of moving."

Fountain said she gets a lot of business from people employed by the government who are moving out of their government-supplied accommodations.

That's because according to housing guidelines, she said, "everything has to be clean, washed and streak-free" before they can move. That goes for everything from the walls to the appliances.

Fountain also does speciality jobs, such as organizing living spaces and getting rid of clutter.

"I can make sense of the mess," she said. "I can transform any environment, even one that's clean. I can make it so it really sparkles."

Fountain is currently on the hunt for eco-friendly products that really work without any chemicals. She recently received samples from a woman in Hay River and is constantly on the lookout for new products.

"You can't do stuff just for money. You have to do stuff because you love it," Fountain said.

"I really love what I'm doing. I want to do good and I want to get good results."