There are $n \ge 2$ houses on the northern side of a street. Going from the west to the east, the houses are numbered from 1 to $n$. The number of each house is shown on a plate. One day the inhabitants of the street make fun of the postman by shuffling their number plates in the following way: for each pair of neighbouring houses, the currnet number plates are swapped exactly once during the day.
How many different sequences of number plates are possible at the end of the day?
1. **Define the problem and initial conditions:**
   Let \( f(n) \) be the number of different sequences of plates at the end of the day for \( n \) houses. We start with the base case:
   \[
   f(2) = 1
   \]
   This is because with 2 houses, swapping their plates once results in only one possible sequence.

2. **Establish the recurrence relation:**
   We need to find a recurrence relation for \( f(n) \). Consider the sequence of plates after the swap operations. For \( n+1 \) houses, we can think of the sequence in two parts:
   - If we perform the swap between the \( n \)-th and \( (n+1) \)-th houses first, the remaining \( n \) houses can be in any of the \( f(n) \) configurations.
   - If we perform the swap between the \( n \)-th and \( (n+1) \)-th houses last, the remaining \( n \) houses can again be in any of the \( f(n) \) configurations.

   Therefore, each configuration of \( n \) houses can lead to two distinct configurations of \( n+1 \) houses (one for each order of the swap involving the \( n \)-th and \( (n+1) \)-th houses). This gives us the recurrence relation:
   \[
   f(n+1) = 2f(n)
   \]

3. **Solve the recurrence relation:**
   We know \( f(2) = 1 \) and \( f(n+1) = 2f(n) \). To find \( f(n) \), we can iterate the recurrence:
   \[
   f(3) = 2f(2) = 2 \times 1 = 2
   \]
   \[
   f(4) = 2f(3) = 2 \times 2 = 4
   \]
   \[
   f(5) = 2f(4) = 2 \times 4 = 8
   \]
   Continuing this pattern, we see that:
   \[
   f(n) = 2^{n-2} \times f(2) = 2^{n-2} \times 1 = 2^{n-2}
   \]

4. **Generalize the solution:**
   By induction, we can generalize the solution to:
   \[
   f(n) = 2^{n-1}
   \]

The final answer is \( \boxed{2^{n-1}} \).