Hastings man Harvey Whaitiri, 79, talks about fending off assailants in December last year.

A 79-year-old Hastings man has struck back against three teens trying to break into his house by hitting one of them across the head with a baseball bat.

Harvey Whaitiri was attacked in his council flat in the suburb of Camberley at about 9pm on Monday.

Whaitiri, who lives alone, was watching television when he heard a knock at his ranchslider door. He pulled back curtains of an adjacent window to find three males aged between 18 and 20 wearing bandanas across their faces.

MARTY SHARPE/ FAIRFAX NZ Harvey Whaitiri, 79, of Hastings fought of three would-be intruders.

One was carrying a baseball bat and another was carrying a knife.

"These bloody dickheads they walk around with these red scarves thinking they're tough. One of them said 'Give us whatever you've got. Money or alcohol.' I told them to piss off," Whaitiri said.

"Then [one of them] started swearing and came rushing at the window to climb in. So I whacked him across the head," he said.

Whaitiri said he gave the man a decent hit with his baseball bat.

"He didn't like that."

"Then they all started shouting and swearing at me. They threw something through the [ranchslider] window, then they smashed the two kitchen windows," he said

After damaging his windows, the group left the property and drove off in their car.

The former despatch manager and rubbish collector, who has lived in the flat for nine years, lifts weights every day in the living room of the small flat.

"There's a lot of young ones around here that I get on with. But not these dickheads with the scarves on their faces. I'm not scared of them. I just can't be bothered with them," he said.

A witness reported that around that time they saw a Blue Honda Civic parked outside the Takapu Rd address with about five males inside.

Detective Glen Yule said Whaitiri, who turned 79 in July, hit the assailant quite hard "so we would like to hear from anyone who might know of a young man who came home with a large bump, or bleeding on his head".

Yule praised Whaitiri for doing the right thing by looking out the window rather than opening the door, and said if he had opened the door he would have been seriously assaulted.

Any information regarding such activities can be reported to police on 06 831 0700, or information can be left anonymously on Crimestoppers by calling 0800 555 111.