ROME (AFP) - A pensioner has wounded eight neighbours including three children, after shooting at them during a row over the gate to their apartment building, Italian media reported Tuesday.

Former security guard Marco Castiello, 76, opened fire with a hunting gun after discovering that the gate to the building in Afragola, near Naples, had been left ajar - despite years of pleas for it to be closed properly, the reports said.

Three children aged seven, 11 and 16 were lightly wounded, as were two men aged 19 and 21 and three women between 26 and 55 years old.

"I'm in the right," Castiello told police who arrested him, while his nephew, who has the same name, told La Repubblica daily the shooting was "the result of exasperation after seven years of misunderstandings and arguments."