Djeddah middle life

Jan Jaap remembers the stories told by his Opa (grand-Dad): that people were building then in Djeddah (1900-1907, just to remind you) 2-3-4 storied houses there; and because of the heat they were sleeping mostly above / at the top level. And in the occasional but excessive rain everything was getting quickly wet and thus heavy, and the places where water goes out was clogged then by the bedding, and the adobe houses crumbled into ruins...