Security guards wielding a steel rods beat up several real estate agents in southern China who taunted him for not being able to afford to buy a house, a local newspaper reported. The agents were advertising on a street in Shenzhen, the special economic zone city next to Hong Kong, when several guards confiscated their billboard and asked them to leave because they were interfering with traffic and "the city's appearance" and traffic, the The guards, or "urban management officers", wear uniforms similar to police but are hired from security firms by municipal governments to patrol streets and remove beggars and illegal hawkers.